One in the Eye for Popeye

This afternoon at the ICA I was pleased to see some work by an interesting gay artist, Cary Kwok, who I have been writing about recently in my PhD thesis. He makes elaborate drawings of male fictional characters, such as Superman and Spiderman, ejaculating. This large print, called Pop in the Eye (2013) features Popeye, spurting his spinach-green ejaculate into his own face. I thought: How refreshing to be treated like an adult and to be allowed to see artwork that is so sexually-direct: in Australia it is unlikely that such imagery would be presented to the public in the current climate of moral hysteria that prevails there. As if to reinforce this theme, on the walls of the cubicle of the malodorous Gents on the ground floor one can, should one wish, inspect the crusty brown ejaculate of what is probably a decade's-worth of men 'taking themselves in hand'. Very clever teaming, ICA, if not very good housekeeping!

Cary Kwok's, Pop in the Eye (2013)




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