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As though working in reverse, this panel of artists and scholars favors the bold and brazen, using the profane as an entry point to explore the many intertwining aspects of sexuality, personal identity, and gender expression in contemporary art. Like in Mapplethorpe’s photographic retrospective, the role of the illicit plays only a small part of a greater whole.

Throughout the discussion, each panelist will use an intersectional lens to examine the role and significance of the taboo and the historically obscured in their work. Engaging with the unconventional and the edges of decency, this panel challenges traditional binaries, amplifying the diversity and fluidity of sex and gender in the arts and expanding the discourse on the interconnectedness of sex, gender, intimacy, and identity.