Mette Ingvartsen
21 pornographies

Writing a novel about libertinage from his prison cell in 1785, Marquis de Sade declared that the nature of human passions authorizes crime. This moment in Western modernity marks the moral ambivalence in the bind between sexual liberation and power. While the legalization of pornography in Denmark in 1967 expanded the erotic freedom towards more gender equality, pornography today includes a politically wide range of expressions and uses, from queer and feminist stances to sexualized torture in war.

Starting from the idea that pornography has leaked into many areas of society, Mette Ingvartsen explores the operations of the pornographic through a collection of erotic and affective materials. Most of them have little to do with explicit sex, yet they show some characteristics of the pornographic: expressions of cruelty, clinical precision, violence and pain, but sometimes also of laughter, excitement and thrill. By mixing physical action with narrative descriptions, a speculative choreography is created.

21 pornographies is part of ongoing series of performances in which Mette Ingvartsen explores relationships between sexuality and the public sphere. In it she investigates naked and sexualized bodies and their influence on societal structures.