HdKVHeidelbergerKunstverein

The feminist group exhibition Sex Reenchanted presents nine international artists and their decolonial perspectives on sexuality.

While it may seem daunting to disentangle the history of sexuality from the colonial era, slavery, and a rationalized medical history shaped by misogyny, this exhibition seeks to draw strength from forgotten or violently erased pre-capitalist narratives.

How can feminists appropriate historical elements for a convivial, harmonious future within the framework of a reenchantment of the world? CANAN interprets an Ottoman literary genre focused on female pleasure through contemporary miniatures; Dalila Dalléas Bouzar traces the vitality of depictions in prehistoric engravings from the Sahara Desert; Monia Ben Hamouda practices Islamic calligraphy to question Christianity’s association of sexuality with original sin; Şafak Şule Kemancı fills queer gardens with the intoxicating fragrances of eroticism!

If knowledge is a dynamic entity that is constantly dying and being reborn, then cultural heritage, too, is never constant, always subject to deconstruction. We see this phenomenon in Zoe Williams’s dark and inviting works that evoke late antiquity, in Anna Ehrenstein’s mischievous engagement with Orientalism, in Kubra Khademi’s rendering of the persian poet Rumi’s poems on naked bodies, and in Daphne Ahlers’s unmasking of Renaissance masculinity through her codpieces; and in Tabita Rézaire's powerful criticism of Western gynecology, guided by the embodied wisdom of her black ancestors.

Curated by Mehveş Ungan

Generously supported by the Innovationsfonds of the Ministry of Science, Research and Art of the State of Baden-Württemberg.

Participating artists:

Daphne Ahlers

Dalila Dalléas Bouzar

CANAN

Anna Ehrenstein

Monia Ben Hamouda

Şafak Şule Kemancı

Kubra Khademi

Tabita Rézaire

Zoe Williams