This week’s column, Madison Young: Bondage Model. Artist. Feminist. Snip:
It all started innocuously enough. I was having drinks at a private event at Kink.com and walked over to say hi to one of the company’s most famous bondage models, Madison Young (madisonbound.com). We’d met once before, on a panel, where she’d struck me as fiercely articulate and sharply aware of a mind-boggling spectrum of sex and gender issues.
I tried not to be intimidated by how gorgeous she always looked in the very intense porn I’d seen her in — or by her intellect. Or by the fact that she identifies as a feminist. In my experience, feminists have generally been out to get me, my porn-lovin’ sisters and brothers, and our little dogs, too.
So when I walked up to Madison at Kink, she was in the middle of a sentence that went, “So I had to ask myself: just how many anal scenes does it take to open a feminist art gallery?”
Madison was talking about the upcoming (re)opening of her cutting edge art space, Femina Potens. And of course, I had to find out the answer to her question, plus a few more.
Violet Blue: Was there any particular event, occurrence or artist that prompted you to start Femina Potens?
Madison Young: Femina Potens began in 2001 after I moved to San Francisco as an Ohio ex-pat. I was surprised when I settled into the city and found a real lack of spaces for women and trans communities and found a lack of visibility of women and transgender artists at galleries, open mics, rock shows and in the art scene in general. I wanted to create a space where women and transgender artists could cultivate new artwork and bring greater visibility to women and trans artists. We started in 2001 with just an idea, passion, and a feeling of responsibility to the community to make a difference. At that time, we had no funding and I believe that I was even in between jobs and housing. But I knew that this was something that I had to do, so I did it. Now we produce close to 50 LGBT art events each year that work toward the advancement of women and trans communities in the arts, and have just acquired a new storefront gallery space in the Castro.
VB: Who inspired you?
MY: Artists who really were an inspiration in my going through with Femina Potens are Diane DiPrima and Michelle Tea, who both have been very active in community organizing and very supportive of Femina Potens. Annie Sprinkle and her partner, Elizabeth Stephens, have also been a major influence on our gallery and very supportive of our work.
VB: Who are some of your favorite contemporary artists?
MY: Some of my favorites would have to be Annie Sprinkle, Amanda Coogan, Pipilotti Rist, and Rebecca Horn. Local artists that are probably my favorites right now are Twiz Rimer (who is creating some really powerful large-scale sculptural paintings that reflect the queer community), Tina Takemoto, Twincest (twincest.net), Laura Splan, and Rebecca McBride.
VB: What types of art will you feature in the new space?
MY: Our gallery features all mediums of work. Our first exhibit on August 18th will have a sci-fi theme that relates to gender identity featuring works by Eliot K Daughtry and Francesca Berrini. On September 28th our “Daddies and Dykes” exhibit will be part of the Folsom Street Fair celebration and will feature artists Midori, Lee Harrington, and Julie Simone (juliesimone.com). We will be paying homage to our gallery’s previous occupants of 25 years, Image Leather, by featuring women and trans artists eroticizing leather men.
A new program that we will be adding to our roster is curation of “Outside Looking In.” “Outside Looking In” will be featuring evolving installation works in our storefront windows in which passers-by can watch as an installation piece grows and develops throughout the weeks. The installation will be affected by the way the artists view Market Street. And the evolution of the piece will be determined by the interactions that the passers-by have with the work.
VB: While we were at Kink.com the other night, you joked about “how many anal scenes it takes to open a feminist art gallery.” Can you explain the context of this statement?
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