Scientia Sexualis

Bodily autonomy is a fragile affair.

- Grace Byron

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA

This present reality finds historical context in 'Scientia Sexualis' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which offers a window onto the ways in which scientific discourses of sex, gender and sexuality have violent (racist, colonial) histories or are put to violent ends. Curated by Jeanne Vaccaro and Jennifer Doyle, the exhibition sees 27 artists using menstrual blood, hormones, pills, latex gloves and toilets to turn the 'science of sex' into a communal art project instead of a diagnostic tool. The works on view range from grimly realistic to radically utopic, from bubblegum-pink paintings to disorienting, abstract films. It's a powerful array of erotic possibilities. Colourful banners (all 2022) by Cauleen Smith herald the world we've made and the one we have yet to build. *YOUR PAST MADE MY FUTURE, one declares. 'WELCOME TO THE AFTERMATH,' says another.

'Scientia Sexualis' underscores that science, like the personal, is political. The show is urgent in our current moment: a time when hormone replacement therapy is being banned on both sides of the Atlantic and, in the US, Roe v. Wade has been overturned, removing the constitutional right to abortion; 'Your Body My Choice' has become a far-right rallying cry; and drag bans and book bans abound.