NEW YORK--Pornography has long been an au courant subject for contemporary art -- see John Currin, Marilyn Minter, or Richard Prince -- but it's rare to find a working porn star who's making art. (Ron Jeremy's media empire isn't exactly the Warhol Factory.) Enter Sasha Grey, the 23-year old adult film actress who has, like an open-minded and highly flexible comet, streaked across the mainstream media radar over these past few years. Suddenly there Grey was, in American Apparel ads. In Steven Soderbergh movies. On "Entourage," dating Vince. And, as of today, promoting the release of her first book of art photography, "Neu Sex," published by VICE Books.
Last night Grey was joined by friend and occasional collaborator Brandon Stosuy for a standing-room only conversation at Housing Works Café. Dressed rather demurely, Grey shared her love for Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin, and explained how she's been able to recast her career in pornographic films as performance art. It's about "using my body as a canvas, as the tool," she said. "I was able to examine myself." She also discussed the difficult positions in which modern women find themselves ("We're allowed to be sexy, but not sexual") and how she's managed to juggle adult acting with a long-term relationship ("It's all about communication").
"Neu Sex" itself is an exercise in obsessive self-portraiture, what Grey calls a conscious effort to retain editorial authority over her image. The content veers between snapshots -- Grey with Billy Corgan, Terry Richardson -- and poetic surrealism. It owes as much to the Myspace generation's fixation on profile pics as it does to Sherman or Goldin. (Grey says that 5 or 10 percent of the available photos didn't make it into the book; evidently VICE thought there were "too many men," not enough Sasha.)
"Neu Sex" is both about glamor and its opposite -- there are plenty of images of Grey looking rough, or peeing on the street, or dripping with fake blood in the shower. Whether this is liberating or disturbing is a matter of personal taste. Either way, Grey isn't about to take a break anytime soon. She and her fiancée Ian P. Cinnamon, who shares photo credit with Grey here, are working with Stosuy on a black metal-themed film, "I Am The Destroyer"; her band, aTelecine, is due to release a new album, "The Falcon and The Pod," a "dark space odyssey," according to the band's Twitter feed. And Grey's friend ?uestlove was on hand at the event's afterparty, perhaps pointing to even more eclectic collaborations in the near future.
-Scott Indrisek, ARTINFO
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And if you still don't understand my verbal. This article belongs in the Entertainment section.
But I wouldn't call it porn, really. I think it's more of a grasp, by Grey, to control the images of her, and a sort of look at what interests her.
A lot of the images are actually pretty interesting. But I find Sasha Grey pretty interesting, so it may be my personal bias. Ironically, she's certainly not one of my favorite porn stars, when it comes to actual porn. However, she's easily one of my favorites when it comes to the entire image.
It really is a beautiful book.
She's absolutely gorgeous, but she's best at being herself in a world that people *want* to disgrace, but actually take part in.
Now that I've gotten more time to look at her book, it's really fantastic. I think it would only appeal to a certain portion of the population, but that doesn't mean that it's not a damn fun read/look.
Sasha never pretends to be something she isn't. Or, conversely, she ALWAYS pretends to be what she isn't. But does it matter?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/russian-art-group-voina-uses-often-illegal-means-to-spread-anti-state-message/2011/03/30/AF6dtfLC_story.html?hpid=z9
For one extreme performance, staged days before the election of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Voina held a public orgy at the Timiryazev State Biological Museum in Moscow. Five couples met inside the museum’s Hall on Metabolism, Energy, Nutrition and Digestion and copulated. The performance was filmed and posted online.
For a June 2010 work, executed under the cover of night, members of Voina poured white paint on the surface of the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg. When the drawbridge rose in the early morning, the adjacent headquarters for the Federal Security Service (the successor of the KGB) was saluted by a 200-foot tall depiction of an erect phallus. Showing good humor, Russia’s Ministry of Culture nominated and even shortlisted Voina’s “Penis Captured by KGB” performance for the state’s prestigious Innovation award for art. Voina rejected the nomination.
It was a way for her to gain control over a particular aspect of her life.
As a map of Hawaii.