DESTRICTED

To depict sex is really, really easy. But to actually deal with sex – in a way that is not just creative but also interesting – is hard.

This is the complexity at the centre of Destricted, an ongoing series of short films addressing the crossover between sex, art and pornography. The initial collection was released in 2006 in the UK and featured works by Sam Taylor-Wood, Richard Prince, Gaspar Noe, Larry Clark, Marco Brambilla, Matthew Barney and Marina Abramovic. A later US version, released in 2010, included new additions by Tunga, Sante D’Orazio, Marilyn Minter and Cecily Brown.

Destricted’s two versions feature interviews, three-part narratives, animations, abstractions, multi-layered concepts and simple ones too. If the films mount a collective point, it seems to be that sex has the power to clarify and and obfuscate equally. This applies, we are shown, in art as it does in life.