Image credit: More Than Just, Scott Lawrie Gallery, February 2023.
More Than Just
22 February – 21 April, 2024
Artist Talk with Matilda Gold (R18): Thursday 22 February, 10am
AV Gallery
Welcome to More Than Just, an empowering art exhibition presented by sex workers, reclaiming narratives and challenging stereotypes. In a society often confined to two-dimensional perceptions of sex workers we invite you to witness the vibrant and multifaceted dimensions of their lives.
More Than Just is made up of work by a group of New Zealand/Aotearoa and Australia-based artists whose day jobs are in the sex industry. For the purposes of this exhibition the ‘sex industry' describes a labour force which is specific and diverse in its historic, economic, and political manifestation. Among the modern service industries the sex industry is unique in that it is almost wholly grounded on the labour force supplying services, which is quite different from other service industries where labour is attached or attendant to another product or property, e.g. the restaurant business. This collapsing of category between the worker and the service is addressed by More Than Just through an invitation to exhibition visitors to contemplate a more expansive understanding of those in the industry.
The specific legal and political context of the industry arises from the liberalisation of laws regulating it in Aotearoa and Australia from the mid-1970s on. A watershed moment in New Zealand is marked with the Prostitution Reform Act of 2003, following earlier reforms. While the laws in Australia were similarly liberalised across the same period, compared to Aotearoa, regulations on the industry there became both more ‘restrictive’ and more ‘permissive’, depending on the different legal framework determined by each Australian State and Territory legislature.
It is no coincidence these reforms double the historic trajectory of broader ‘neo-liberal’ macro-economic reforms which happened across both countries from the 1970s through to the present day. While a generalisation, it is true to say that during this same period, the economic well-being of artists became more closely tied to service industry work than previously. Billy Apple’s statement is a useful shorthand for the paradigm shift: ‘The Artist Must Live Like Everyone Else’, as long as we acknowledge how Apple moved from an almost stereotypical pop art practice (including a turn at an ‘obscenity art’ common in the 60s and 70s), which was commonly facilitated and supported through state and civic benefactor schemes, through to occupying an ironic neo-liberal niche with his dedicated exploration of the currency and commerce of art production in a highly subjectified vertical integration. This sort of atomisation and re-subjectification was broadly experienced by most artists during the reform period of the ‘80s and ‘90s and at its best represents the de-sacralisation of art to make it about the everyday struggle of balancing art and a day job.
Just as the ‘ought to’ also inheres in Apple’s statement, More Than Just seeks to describe the lived conditions of sex workers beyond what is due at minimum under the law. Sex workers’ lives and the intersection with art is thereby framed as the locus for an exceedingly clear vision of the essential struggle for an artistic imperative in our modern economies. Through a diverse array of mediums, these artists dismantle the limited narratives that reduce sex workers to mere objects in that collapse of category between worker and service. Each piece is a testament to the richness and complexity of their experiences.
The exhibition unfolds as a celebration of resilience, individuality, and the right to self-expression. More Than Just encapsulates the myriad roles sex workers play in their daily lives — creators, thinkers, and agents of change. It challenges the viewer to see beyond the surface, encouraging a deeper understanding of the human behind the label.
Explore the intricacies of identity, desire, and autonomy through the lenses of those who navigate a world often quick to judge. The artworks transcend boundaries, allowing us to connect with the universal aspects of human experience that bind us all.
This exhibition is a call to recognize that sex workers are not confined to societal stereotypes. They are storytellers, artists, and participants in the rich tapestry of life. More Than Just invites you to witness the beauty, strength, and diversity that exists within each individual, breaking free from the constraints of simplistic perspectives and celebrating the profound truth that we are all more than just what meets the eye.