From Jaya Saxena’s article concerning the Museum of Sex exhibition “NSFW Female Gaze” for Elle:
The exhibit (co-curated by Marina Garcia-Vasquez, Editor in Chief of Creators from VICE, and Lissa Rivera) aims to counter the onslaught of male perspectives of sexual desire with women’s interpretations, whether they reclaim traditional pornographic imagery or subvert it entirely. The result is a collection of works that, while explicitly sexual, show the complexities of women’s sexual desires, whether the subjects are themselves or others.
The artists are mostly in their 20s, and, as such, so are most of the subjects. And while a wider age range would have added even more depth to the exhibit, there is a range of bodies, ethnicities, and sexual perspectives on display. Taira Rice’s illustrations evoke Egon Schiele’s nude portraiture, while Lissa Rivera focused her gaze on her partner, BJ, dressed and photographed as a traditional female beauty. Often, the focus of the art was the artist themselves, demanding to be seen as a sexual object—on their own terms.