Ecosexual artist couple Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle (1960, 1954, US) build community by creating multidisciplinary art projects that envision the natural world, and sexuality, with fresh eyes. They question and expand prevailing notions of environmental art; challenge the mainstream’s binary concepts of gender, erotic pleasure and race; incorporate inclusive, diverse, and imaginative possibilities for more meaningful and happy living; and support scientifically informed environmental practices. Their body of work promotes love, tolerance, sustainability and peace.
As movers and shakers in the ecosexual movement, Sprinkle and Stephens have written instructions for pleasuring the Earth (25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth), ecosexual manifestos and vows for marrying the Earth. Their most recent book, Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover (2021), was published by University of Minnesota Press.
Manifest 14 exhibition page.
In addition to performing at documenta, we were given an exhibition in the Neue Gallerie in Kassel. This exhibition presented our work to an international audience of artists, art lovers, writers, collectors, museum professionals, and gallerists. The carefully curated display of our visual work laid out the historical groundwork of our collaborations with each other. For the Neue exhibition, curator Paul B. Preciado chose our gender fluid 25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth banner, Beth’s Porn Star/Academic Bronzed Panty Collection, and a Breast Cancer Ballet collage. Paul also chose two of Annie’s older pin-up polaroid pieces: Why Whores are My Heroes and The Transformation Salon. Beth’s speculum sculpture, which invites the viewer to look through the speculum in order to watch a video of Annie performing her Public Cervix Announcement, was included, as was our Ecosex Wedding Project, a looped ten-minute video compilation of our ecosexual wedding highlights. The pièce de résistance were the two formal vitrines full of our ephemera, one held wedding invitations, posters, and other items from our Love Art Lab project. Another held zines, publications, and Annie’s Post Modern Pin-Up Pleasure Activist Playing Cards that Annie made in1996 with Katharine Gates. Some of these photos were taken before the gallery opened. When open, everyone commented on how our gallery space was always packed with visitors.
In the group photo from left to right: Balitronica, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, curator Paul B. Preciado, Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, King Erik from Emmetrop, and Cecile aka Mamita.
We had a two person exhibition at Jancar Gallery in Los Angels to being 2013. We showed a lot of our older work that we made separately as well as work that we made together. It was fun showing in LA and a lot of old friends, including Ron Jeremy and his entourage of Amazon queens came by to check out his bronze BVD’s. The exhibition was fun and probably our best exhibition to date.
It takes a village to install an art exhibit, and we couldn’t have done it without the wonderful Femina Potens volunteers, and our generous and talented friends, Lady Monster, Tessa Willis, Ruby Pearl (who designed the glass case display and made the green wedding rings), Adam Harms, Hallie McConlogue, and others. Katharine Gates designed some.
This exhibit was supported in part by grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants Program, UCSC Arts Research Institute, and generous support from the Queer Cultural Center. We especially want to thank Madison Young, who is the woman behind Femina Potens, for her continued support of the Love Art Laboratory project.
