When I say that one of the 7 stops we’ll visit on my Sat. Oct. 20 Gay & Lesbian gallery tour consists of semen paintings, I don’t mean oil paintings depicting semen.  No, I’m talking about paintings MADE OF semen.  And that’s not all: the audacious, ground-breaking German artist who put this exhibit together asked several men – and one 14 year-old boy – to come to the gallery and ejaculate directly onto the gallery walls, and the stains that got left behind IS the art!  And the gallery is SELLING these semen “paintings” for $30,000 to $80,000 apiece!  It’s about the most subversive exhibit that has ever been included on one of my gallery tours – gay or not – in the 10 years I’ve been leading tours.

The gallery that is putting on this exhibit is internationally renowned, not some fly-by-night fringe space.  Though it does sometimes push the boundaries about art with some very experimental shows.  It sure is doing it big-time with this one.

I see everything that shows in New York, and I can think of only one other instance in which actual semen was a component of artwork.  It was a piece in which different glass jars contained one each of every bodily fluid there is – saliva, tears, milk, urine, semen, and more.  That’s practically tasteful compared with what you’re going to see on my Oct. 20 tour.

We’ll visit 6 other extraordinary exhibits that day as well, including brand-new abstract expressionist paintings by a lesbian artist whose works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney Museum, and a gay male artist whose timely and imaginative sculptures skewer the political system.

This tour is going to be seriously engaging and SERIOUSLY outrageous.

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D.
Founder and Director
New York GalleryTours