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Sex Appeal: The Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design
edited by Steven Heller.
Allworth Press, New York, NY, U.S.A., 2000.
ISBN: 1-58115-048-2.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, Department of Art, University of Northern
Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50613-0362, U.S.A. E-mail: ballast@netins.net
Like it or not, prurient illustration (of whatever inclination), erotic
advertising and sexual innuendo are parts of the province of graphic
design, substantial and increasing parts. Nearly all sexually
provocative or "graphic" material in our society is produced by people
whose occupations may include illustrator, photographer, advertising
artist, and graphic designer. This book features essays and interviews
on the various dimensions of that subject, written by 35 designers,
theorists, historians, and others, among them Johanna Drucker, Ralph
Caplan, Veronique Vienne, and Ralph Ginzburg. It is a varied and frank
exploration, offering a wide range of concerns and opinions (with
sections on Animal Magnetism; Sex as Metaphor; Chic Sex; Sex, Power,
Feminism; Sexual Progress; and Talking Sex), and using language and
photographs that are both well-chosen and unrestrained. This is a
thought-provoking collection, in large part because of the universality
of the subject matter, but also because of the rarity with which these
issues are ever discussed from an earnest (if not always serious) point
of view. (Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review 15, No.
4, Summer 2000.)
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