Emilė Skolevičiūtė

“Ilona”, 2018

“Ilona” means Ilona Staller, Cicciolina, Italian politician and a porn star. She presents sexual human body from a woman’s perspective, it’s public exposure in today’s world of icons. The pornography from the ‘70s to our days has changed. The ‘70s had a romantic, artistic point of view and the movies had a high aesthetic value. Now porn is more likely to be five minutes long video to get one’s desires a little help. On the other hand, the human body has been seen the same way for centuries. The body cult in western world is being led by Christianity. A thin line between sacredness and the consumption of “heavenly body” is a timeless tendency in religion. Church icons and pop culture heroes are basically the same – now the world is led by many gods – we practice poly-theistic religion. Every (super)star is no longer a star, they are gods, ruling those stars. And one of them, Cicciolina is an embodiment of this phenomenon. She sings lullabies in erotic films, wears flowers in her hair and is as pure as a pornstar could ever be. She creates herself as a goddess. She creates her own desire as the others’ desire. She is the desire. And so the potential of the sexual body, as a desire, is reconstructed in the artwork. It is Absence and Presence at once. Surplus and scarcity, which makes us wonder in the very pure labyrinths of sexual inwardness.