Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts presents Explicit, a group exhibition featuring Vito Acconci, Lyle Ashton harris, Bob Flanagan, Richard Kern, Yasumasa Morimura, Pierre Molinier, Jack Pierson, Carolee Schneemann, Kiki Smith, Annie Sprinkle and Wolfgang Tillmans, Maureen Conner, Iké Udé, Kankanakis, and Lorna Simpson.

In this exhibition of works, Explicit reflects on the transient nature of art and our impulse to collect and protect it. Using contemporary and archival material, the gallery hopes to create a specific mood or “snapshot” of the bigger picture of how the “Explicit” choices in our personal life and art collection, our décor, and reading material come to define us as we really are, or how they can be used to create the “character” of what we would like to be. For this show, the gallery has expanded to focus beyond the “safe” art collection and in doing so represents what could be the typical choices of the more adventuresome, urban individual.

Vito Acconci uses radical body related installations and performance art to create a psychologically intricate body of work that is often viewed as confrontational. The work of Acconci’s work is an exploration of the self and how a body reacts within a given environment

Lyle Ashton Harris’s photography blurs the line between masculinity and femininity while questioning stereotypes of race and sexuality. Within his self portraits, Harris manages to reveal deep personal experiences while hiding behind a disguise.

Bob Flanagan: was an American writer, poet, musician and performance artist, famous for his masochistic performances and examination of how individuals experience pain and sadomasochistic domination.

Richard Kern photographs straddle the line between art and pornography as they capture intimate moments between sexual partners. The beauty within his art demonstrates Kern’s ability to elevate nude photography to a personal level of art.

Yasumasa Morimura puts a satirical twist on the self-portrait by combining his face onto famous works by other historical painters. Through his interesting style and attention to detail, Morimura gives us a strange look into himself as well as art history.

Pierre Molinier’s photography reflects his obsessive, elaborate, and highly-stylized sexual fantasies. He used an array of props and often friends to create a sexually charged environment.

Jack Pierson, one of the most celebrated American artists of his generation and a pioneer of male portraiture, uses photography as a tool, to collect images and to explore the relationship to and between art objects.

Carolee Schneemann focuses on themes of the body, sexuality and gender in “More than Meat Joy”. She is distinguished by her exploration of taboos, as well as the relationship between the individual body and the social bodies that surround it.

Kiki Smith’s works, with themes of birth and regeneration, are often haunting and filled with political and social significance.

Annie Sprinkle focuses her artwork towards exploring, generating, and celebrating love. Her artwork incorporates the colors and themes of the chakras to create a symbolic gesture of promoting universal peace.

Wolfgang Tillmans was the first photographer and also the first non-English artist to be awarded the highly coveted Turner Prize. His photos from the European Gay Pride in London (1992) or the Love Parade in Berlin (1992) appeared in magazines such as i-D, Spex, Interview, SZ-Magazin and Butt-Magazine. He was considered the “documentarian of his generation, especially that of the London club- and gay-scenes”