Porn & Politics

Broadway Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Porn and Politics,” a mixed media showcase displaying the recent work of Pun and Steve Pauley. The show will feature a catalog of Pun’s digital photomontages alongside Pauley’s stone carved media images. The show, curated by Steven Psyllos and Julia Saenz, synthesizes Pun’s erotic images and Steven Pauley’s socially conscious message to demonstrate the intersection of sex and politics in visual media.

Pun’s photomontages are constructed from images of wallpaper and pornography and can be printed to fit any wall size. Combining and juxtaposing disparate images, Pun has been creating unique and lush photomontages for over ten years. While based in Paris in the late 90s, Pun’s photomontages garnered recognition through their frequent appearance in the French magazine Votre Beaute. In 2004, Pun, “a fan of the decorative arts,” exhibited a photomontage used as wallpaper at Salone Satellite in Milan. For the exhibition, Pun takes the wallpaper theme a step further by mixing images from decorative arts, erotica and pornography.

Steve Pauley’s work investigates the effect of political crisis by way of the media event. He reflects on recent historical events, such as the World Trade Center attacks and the DC area sniper shootings of 2002, as well as their respective impact on social and individual consciousness. Pauley is particularly interested in the means through which these types of images are memorialized through repetition in the modern media. “By memorializing specific recognizable images from the news media in stone,” Pauley explains, “I invite the viewer to contemplate these events from a perspective other than from in front of a television screen or newspaper.”

The exhibition combines the two ruling obsessions of the mediated world, porn and politics, allowing a fresh perspective into their profound influence on our daily lives. “Porn and Politics” will run from January 16th to the 31st with an opening on the 18th. @ 6 to 8 pm.