sophiawallace:

CLITERACY, 100 Natural Laws © Sophia Wallace 2012. Currently on view at Dumbo Art Center, details below. 

CLITERACY, 100 Natural Laws is mixed media project that explores a paradox;  the global obsession with sexualizing female bodies in a world that is illiterate when it comes to female sexuality. CLITERACY is a new way of talking about citizenship, sexuality, human rights, and bodies. The project reveals the – phallic as neutral – bias in science, law, philosophy, politics, mainstream and even feminist discussion, and the art world - which is so saturated with the female body as subject. Each of these sectors have denied and diminished the significance of the clitoris. Using text as form, CLITERACY explores the construction of female sexual bodies as passive vehicles of reception defined by lack. It confronts a false body of knowledge by scientists who have resisted the idea of anything unique about the female body and rather studied only what confirmed their assumption that women’s anatomy was the inverse of male anatomy, and that reproduction was worthy of study, while female sexuality was most certainly not. In the last ten years there have been tremendous scientific breakthroughs in the understanding of the clitoris. The clitoris is exponentially larger and more complex than commonly thought. What we think of as the clitoris, is only the tip of the iceberg.  While this discovery is exciting, it is a salient allegory into the bigger problem of a female body, both cis and trans female, constructed by men, based on false information, the goal of control and a culture that defines femaleness as inferior and female sexual organs as taboo. It further questions the fetishization of reproductive sex– despite the fact that 70% of women do not orgasm from vaginal penetration alone– and the pathologization of non-reproductive sex and those who practice it, particularly queers and sex workers. CLITERACY builds upon my photographic practice and continues my exploration of how power shapes knowledge, often through use of the visual, for the purpose of social control. The project is monumental in scope and scale with 100 Natural Laws that span 10 by 13 feet and a 6 foot neon piece suspended from the ceiling.  CLITERACY, 100 Natural Laws was completed during my Van Lier Fellowship in the Art Law Residency. 

CLITERACY 100 Natural Laws Scenes a Faire Art & Law Residency Exhibition
On View: Oct. 5-21 at Dumbo Art Center
Artist Talk: Sophia Wallace Oct. 16, 7-8:30pm at Dumbo Art Center 
111 Front Street, Suite 212, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel 718-694-0831  Email gallery@dumboartscenter.org
Gallery Hours: 12 - 6pm Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 5PM Sunday

Info & Press Photos: 
CLITERACY 100 Natural Laws 
Sophia Wallace’s Studio:  studio( )sophiawallace.com