Sex Machines & Related Objects/Activities

The Cincinnati Arts Associations Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts presents two new exhibitions: Unbrided, Textile & Computer-Generated Works by Deborah Brod, an autobiographical exploration combining textiles and digital images, and Sex Machines and Related Objects/Activities by Peter Huttinger, a provocative and tongue-in-cheek examination of sexuality and materialism.

Peter Huttinger's exhibition of sculpture, editioned objects, 16 mm film loops, bookworks and mixed-media constructions examine the interplay between an objects format and context to create allegories that encourage thought about the nature of, and ethics encompassing, sexuality and materialism.

Sex Machines and Related Objects/Activities presents a series of work that explores artwork as fetish and the concept of sexuality as an object of consumption and desire. The exhibition will focus on a selection of "sex machine" sculptures and the installation of a new project incorporating an Orgone Accumulator, the controversial life-energy gathering device developed and promoted by Dr. Wilhelm Reich in the 1940s and '50s.

The selection and presentation of the sex machine sculptures most of which are fabricated from found objects is informed by many sources. Some are simply altered domestic objects while others are appropriated and renamed medical equipment. Additional objects in the exhibition reference sex toys and contraceptive devices as well as the packaging and marketing of sexuality by the sex industry and mainstream media. Huttinger intends for the interplay between the object and its concept and usage to be tongue-in cheek with the works generally conveying mixed messages or paradoxes.

Peter Huttinger has an extensive exhibition history both regionally and nationally since earning his MFA in drawing from the University of Cincinnati in 1979. His work is represented in numerous private, corporate and museum collections.

download Peter Huttinger's Artist Statement