“Private” Parts!?

About

Contextualised by the artists Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl, the exhibition not only celebrates Grant’s artistic lineage but acts as a site to consider notions of censorship, lust, and erotic sensibility.

Drawn by Duncan Grant during the 1940s and 50s, when sex between men was still illegal in England (and any notion of sexual deviance was frowned upon), these historic drawings depict intimate scenes of love, lovers, and acts of lovemaking that deviated from rigid standards of conservative normalcy. Feared to have been destroyed, due to their ‘controversial’ subject matter, the drawings resurfaced in 2020 after being donated to Grant’s former home, Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex.

As a continuation of their collaborative practice, “Private” Parts!? is Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl’s first duo exhibition in the UK. Set within a minimal installation, conceived by Knebl, here, a selection of Grant’s sensitive scenes will be paired with archival drawings made by Scheirl in the late 1980s and ’90s. in this way “Private” Parts!? is envisaged as a trans-generational conversation; a dialogue about acts of censorship, modes of loving, as well as erotic sensibility and differing ideas of desire.

Though differing in aesthetic sensibility, both Grant and Scheirl’s loose sketches revolve around ideas of erotic longing; the freedom found in the caress of a lover,  lovers, and indeed the act of loving. Departing from their usual artistic strategy of excess, Knebl & Scheirl, as an artistic couple, have developed the ideas for this exhibition by sitting with the material sensuality innate to Grant’s ‘lost’ drawings. Echoing the subtle beauty of these works, the private dialogues writhing beneath the surfaces of both Grant and Scheirl’s sketches emerge here as notes that pass between lovers; indeed, as visual quotes, lovingly reaped from private diaries, as gestures only ever meant for the eyes of those held dear.

“Private” Parts!? will open on Friday 16 September, with an extended public reception on Thursday 15, 2022 – following Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl’s representation of Austria at the 59th Venice Biennale and ahead of the duo’s solo exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in 2023.

Belmacz’s presentation of Grant’s drawings will coincide with, Very Private? a wider exhibition of Grant’s erotic drawings held at Charleston (Lewes, Sussex). Responding to themes of sex, intimacy, gender, and identity, Charleston’s group exhibition features new work by artists including Somaya Critchlow, Harold Offeh, Kadie Salmon, Tim Walker, Alison Wilding and Ajamu X.