Art Student Looses His Backdoor Virginity in an Art Project

No art, no love. Clayton Pettet, a 19-year-old art student at Central St Martins, publicly looses his virginity — the backdoor kind — in a project called Art School Stole My Virginity. On January 25, 2014, the sophomore and a male friend will engage in safe sex onstage in London's East End.

On his Tumblr, he explains it in more art-speak terms: "Although virginity itself is an abstract idea, the moment the hymen is broken is completely physical, and thus the exact moment of deflowering can be pin-pointed. For women that is. The loss of male virginity is still more abstract — an undetectable moment in time, does male virginity really exist? If so, can a male ever lose his virginity?"



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Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest Fest is happy to host an open discussion of Clayton Pettet’s muchanticipated performance Art School Stole My Virginity, during which the artist will lose his virginity
before a live audience in a West London gallery space. Pettet situates his performance as an
investigation into the cultural significance of virginity and sexuality. The artist is also critiquing what
he perceives as the stagnation of the London contemporary art scene and art education system.
This piece has received widespread media attention in national and international publications –
unusual for a work by any artist, let alone a nineteen-year-old art student. Despite seemingly
comprehensive coverage, media outlets continue to focus on the superficial sensationalism of the
piece, describing Art School Stole My Virginity as a “live gay sex show,” a “controversial ‘exhibit’,”
and “taking sexual exhibitionism to new heights.”

Pettet says his “piece isn’t a statement as much as it is a question.” In “A Performance of the
People:” Discussing Art School Stole My Virginity, art historians Dorothy Fisher and Vincent
Marquis will collaborate with Pettet to answer that question by discussing both Art School Stole My
Virginity and the attention around it. Fisher, Marquis and Pettet are interested in examining the
relationship between Pettet’s work and the themes of gender, sexuality, art education, and the
reception of contemporary art. The collaborators hope to create a space for a nuanced discussion
of these themes by combining the art historical backgrounds of Fisher and Marquis with the fine
arts training of Pettet. The discussion format of “A Performance of the People:” Discussing Art
School Stole My Virginity allows the contributors and the audience to participate in an exchange of
ideas toward a new understanding of Pettet’s work and its implications.

Clayton Pettet was a child and is now an Artist.

Vincent Marquis is an MA candidate in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. He
received a BA in Art History and Philosophy from McGill University in 2013. His main field of
research is contemporary visual culture, and in particular: participatory art; engagements with time
and temporality in video and installation arts; queer visual culture; and theories of urban planning
and architecture. Vincent’s writings have appeared in Canadian publications such as Invitation,
Canvas, and Hirundo. He has held several editorial positions in Canada and the UK (notably within
Critical Contemporary Culture, Postliminium, and Canvas) and has been involved in curatorial
projects at both McGill University and the Courtauld Institute.

Dorothy Fisher is an MA candidate in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She
received a BA in Art History from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2013. Her research broadly
deals with the legacy of Victorian art and culture in the twenty-first century, ranging from
visualisations of queer sexuality to links between traditionally feminine crafts and socialist activism.
Dorothy is currently interested in the role museums can and should play in rectifying institutional
injustice, and has worked in a variety of museum education positions at St. Mary’s College.

Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest is an audio-visual arts adventure rooted in London’s gay creative
community and welcoming everyone. Its program includes powerful new and old films, art
exhibitions, performances and parties collaborating with the best of London’s alternative art scene
and reaching deep into local communities.

This event is part of Fringe! Spring Fling

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So yeah, in case that wasn't obvious: Art School Stole My Virginity didn't actually have any sex in it. On a scale of art hoaxes, I'd rank this somewhat below David Bowie and William Boyd's infamous "Nat Tate" swindle where they created a fictional artist from scratch. But according to Pettet, the fakery was the whole point to start with. I spoke to Clayton after the performance, which he described as "incredibly intimate and mentally exhausting".

Dazed Digital: You were never going to actually have sex, were you?
Clayton Pettet: No. I’ve always said I didn’t believe in virginity, so it kind of defeats the point if I’d actually lost my virginity for my art show! It was always about me stealing the word ‘virginity’, rather than having it stolen from me. That’s why I pushed the date back about 75 times. Because of the press the piece got, galleries assumed I was going to trick them and do what everyone thought I was going to do. But I’m not going to give what everyone wants, it’s not the point. 

DD: Don’t you think people expect this to be, well, you losing your virginity?
Clayton Pettet: It’s not wrongly expected, but I’ve always said in interviews there’s this partner I’ve never identified. I think if people were expecting something else, it shows what they really wanted. They didn’t want an art piece, they wanted to see me have sex. If they came for the art, they wouldn’t be as disappointed – they’d know there were things to read between the lines for.

DD: Would the piece have even existed in its current state if there hadn't been such a media storm around it?
Clayton Pettet: It exists 90 per cent because of the reaction the word ‘virgin’ got. The idea developed even more so because of the reaction: it was crazier than I could understand. It just goes to show our obsession with virginity and gay sex.

DD: I found the entire thing pretty awkward and nerve-wracking, TBH. 
Clayton Pettet: The nerves and feeling forced to penetrate my mouth with a banana foreshadows what society made me feel about my own virginity. It was interesting doing this to the audience to see how they’d react. It was incredibly intimate and mentally exhausting. Some guy fumbled for his belt. I don’t know who he is. He just assumed… There was another guy who pulled my hair back and was (mimes thrusting banana down his throat). There were those points that made me feel a bit shaky.

DD: What’s the response been like so far?
Clayton Pettet: I’ve had mixed responses. Some guy was really sad, he said I looked like a 13-year-old boy and that it was sad and traumatic – but fantastic, because of the way I’d made everyone think they came to a performance to watch a 19-year-old lose his virginity.

DD: There was that thing with John Bingham, another artist who accused you of maybe stealing his idea…
Clayton Pettet: I don’t even know what to say about that boy. He’s the oddest person I’ve ever encountered. Marina Abramović says an artist never steals another artist’s work.

DD: So, are you still a virgin?
Clayton Pettet: Yeah. And also – this is my answer – I will never have sex. My art is my sexuality.

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"This is your virginity that you have projected onto me and here it is – have it. Take it. And if you don’t want to look, fucking go out of the room" Clayton Pettet tells me during an interview in December. At the time, hearing this confirmed me in believing I had more or less figured out his intentions. However, what I expected to see in the performance is nowhere near what really happened.

At around 7.30pm, his bare skin painted with labels like NSFW , Pettet steps in front of his audience which falls silent at once. The Central Saint Martins student spends about two minutes frantically brushing off as many societal stamps as possible only to have his mouth painted black by one of his likewise seminude, performing assistants shortly after. The idea of oppression and imposition culminates in some of the artist’s hair being cut off – a gesture tame by Abramović’s Rhythm 0 standards yet successful in suggesting the concept of loss. Little time is lost after this initial act as Pettet is led down a nearby staircase and a video starts playing. Occasionally interrupted by readings of press he had received after announcing his project, the clip shows the art student sitting at a table covered in bananas. One by one, he picks, peels and eats the fruits – the symbolism behind this lacking the subtlety conceptually-informed work traditionally aspires to – whilst Serge Gainsbourg's "Les Sucettes" is repeatedly played in the background. Similarly to the bananas, visitors are chosen at random to group up and descend the staircase into a separate room.

This second stage of the Clayton Pettet show, filled with about 15 people at a time, features some of the artist’s paintings as well as a wall of headlines, hashtags, names, dates, quotations and accusations. It feels discomforting and simultaneously authentic: From the aggressive handwriting to a painting that incorporates ripped canvas along with a letter sent to Pettet’s parents, asking them to prevent the performance; the confined space is where the audience is exposed to the rawness and immediacy of the artist’s thoughts and emotions. It is here where amazement turns into captivation. Perhaps this explains why not one person speaks a single word within the 15 minutes I spend in the room before being asked to leave the others behind and join Clayton in yet another space.
No longer sure what to expect, I perceive the eerie music coming from above. The artist must still be eating bananas on tape. When entering the third room, I am asked to crouch down and crawl into a small, shed-like construction. Inside, Pettet greets me with his brown eyes and grants me a moment of silence in which I notice the abundance of said fruit surrounding us. ‘You’re going to penetrate me’ the art student says on his knees in a low but determined voice: ‘Orally. With a banana. Six times’. I am not willing to expose that I am partly bewildered and quickly grab a phallic fruit I instinctively deem especially suitable. What follows is my part in stealing Clayton’s virginity. Six times, I slide the banana into his mouth and pull it back out. Ignoring the artist’s teeth somewhat complicating the matter, the penetration is curiously satisfying and we hold eye contact throughout the entire act. Both our faces void of expression, Pettet takes the banana out of my hand, breaks it into two before casting it aside and – without further hesitation – asks me to leave the shed.

In a last segment, visitors are led to a large space containing a variety of paintings. One of them depicts Pettet being forced to eat a banana and stars the audience’s names; another one shows the student clutching his penis in bed along with a written statement about his desire to be well-groomed at age 13. More importantly, the conversations unfolding between exhibition goers over the course of the next 90 minutes (until the last visitor had penetrated Pettet), were speculative as to the nature of the piece and unique in regards to the fact we had all come without knowing what to expect and in fact, how the idea of virginity could be construed by the artist. An ultimately inconsequential, final gesture on Pettet’s part sees him enter the gallery of his own work to face a corner while his underwear is pulled down and one of his co-performers kneels in front of him. What exactly it is we are made to witness eludes me due to the masses of people. The 19 year old art student is eventually veiled and exists the room, naked underneath the sheer, white fabric.

In tonight’s performance, Clayton Pettet turned the tables to some extent. Whereas the general anticipation among members of the audience was to be presented a show to cater to intrinsic motivations as diverse as scopophilia, the seeking of thrills and the reassurance of one’s own definition of virginity, the artist played at his own rules. The bizarre (and for many exhibition goers: embarrassing) element of being subjected to strict regulations and an impersonal tone from Pettet and his small team of assisting performers evoked the sense of having lost something just as important as one’s virginity. From the beginning on, it can be argued, there was more at stake on the side of the audience. Although the execution of the performance lacked refinement in some places and accessibility in others – still at a young age, Clayton occurred not emotionally-distanced enough to his own work to bring it down to its essence – Pettet managed to appeal to something primitive in the mind of all his penetrators. In doing so, he manipulated the social web that united his visitors by excluding him. A sentiment of uneasiness was shared by everyone who found themselves led into the last room, post-penetration. There it was: a mirror of what I found strangely exciting only moments ago, alone with the artist and supposedly given permission to access his body – even if this entailed using a banana. And unlike the labels on Pettet’s skin, this mirror, written over the faces of other attendees, was not as easily brushed off. The artist did not lose his virginity but he lost a virginity. And he was not the only one
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Dr. Peter Purton (Left Front Art) attended Clayton Pettet’s one off performance on 1 April - here he writes up his view on it

I was fortunate to get into Clayton Pettet’s much-hyped performance on April 1 and it certainly fooled anyone expecting a live sex show. Instead, it was the skilfully executed culmination of months of high profile publicity. I guess that was the intention? The only penetration was made with a (lot of!) bananas being sucked. Clayton says his performance was a rejection of established ideas about virginity and sexuality and an assertion of his right to his own definitions. It worked well to justify that and made many of his critics look very silly. But what about his paintings and other artworks? They reminded me of the comic art tradition used by anarchists and radicals in the good old days of the late sixties and seventies, perhaps unknown to today’s teenagers but based on the same in-your-face, crude and explicit imagery as runs through Clayton’s totally sex-act-obsessed art. He’s achieved the level of recognition he hoped for and has the technical skill. My question is, how will his art develop? There is a limit to the number of sexy self-portraits an artist can promote. He wants to challenge what he sees as an oppressive, second-rate and exclusionary modern art world: he will need to do more than this to achieve that. But good luck to him!
Peter Purton 

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But all that publicity obviously paid off, because Clayton's virginity proved to be one of the most in-demand virginities ever. He had to sift through around 10,000 applications to whittle the audience down to the right 150 people he wanted to attend.

Carla Sozzani>10 Corso Como>Book

Unlike her lovable loose cannon of a sister, Franca Sozzani (Italian Vogue editor-in-chief and endlessly quotable un-PC font), Carla Sozzani keeps a relatively low profile. As a former gallerist in Milan, she quietly opened Galleria Carla Sozzani in 1990, which exploded just a year later into the fashion/design concept store — thought to be the first — known by everyone today as 10 Corso Como. It is now a bustling space dedicated to the explorations of culture, literature, culinary art, and music. There is even now a boutique hotel, where many of fashion's cognoscenti stay when in town for Milan Fashion Week, as they are this week.

In May, Rizzoli will publish a monograph of the store, authored by Carla Sozzani herself, called A to Z. And it is exactly that, an A to Z dictionary of her universe, beginning with Azzedine ("Since 1980 I have sat at his long table in the atelier. We eat and talk late into the evenings, speaking of new plans and recalling wonderful times we have shared") and ending with The Little Zen Companion ("With both Eastern and Western poems, parables, haiku, and sayings, it is a serious and evocative way to view life. And each page is delightfully short"). Naturally, as she's hardly the type to be contained in a mere 26 letters, she indulges in multiple meanings for each. Perhaps the sweetest is S, which stands for Sisters ("Like DNA, we will always be joined. Winding around each other—alike and not alike").

Transgender Models of Barneys' New Catalog

Barneys New York has released its latest catalog, a weighty little publication destined for the mailboxes of the style-minded and the pages of major glossies. But there is something different — and yet increasingly normal — about the catalog for spring. The models sporting the season's finest aren't just a racially diverse bunch, a refreshing sight for the store recently accused of racial profiling. They are also transgender.

"I was so lucky to be able to photograph these transgender men and women for Barneys," - Bruce Weber. "They have more courage than any football player, explorer or astronaut combined.

Working together gave us a chance to visit a new world."

While gay rights have made significant strides of late, perception of those who've undergone gender reassignment remains largely transphobic. News of the horrific fate suffered by Islan Nettles, a transgender young woman and budding fashion designer, and the outrageous failure to prosecute the known assailant continue to resonate through the LGBT community, resulting in a rally last week outside police headquarters.

Which makes these 17 models all the more courageous, so let's meet some of them...

Valentijn de Hingh
Valentijn (a male name in her native Dutch) walked for Maison Martin Margiela and Comme des Garçons some years ago. But when she reached 6'1 (some reports claim 6'3), she was let go by her agency. Nonetheless, Valentijn has been photographed for Candy and Love magazines. Should the Zeitgeist for transgender models prove short-lived, Valentijn is one step ahead, graduating in literature science from the University of Amsterdam.

Arin Andrews & Katie Hill
These two Oklahoma teens transitioned together, but in different directions. Upon completion, they were an item for a while, amassing fans all around the world for their unusual love story. Sadly, they broke up just a few weeks ago, but have pledged to stay friends.

Ryley Pogensky
As he says on Twitter, Ryley is a "tattoo'd gender queer foodie with a love of bourbon and a serious case of Cacoethes Scribendi." When was the last time a fashion model professed, in Latin, an urge to write? Good looks and a brain to boot! For added chic, Ryley's adoptive — and clearly very supportive — grandparents also feature in the catalog.

Gisele Xtravaganza
As the name suggests, Gisele hails from the storied house of Xtravaganza, which recently celebrated 30 years of ballroom vogueing fierceness. Gisele is no newcomer to the spotlight, but this may be her most glamorous appearance yet.

Edie Charles
Born and raised in Greenwich Village, Edie is fairly new to the hormone replacement process, but says she has support from everyone around her, including her parents and her boyfriend, who's getting his PhD in gender studies. The two live in London, where Edie is studying jewelry design at Central Saint Martins and continues to model on the side.


On February 11, Barneys donated 10% of sales from its stores and Barneys.com to the National Center for Transgender Equality and the LGBT Community Center in New York. Both organizations are working with Barneys to create an employee training program on trans-related topics.

Photography>Vikram Bawa>The Yogesh Jashnani Campaign 02

Art> A Triangular Encounter

A Triangular Encounter: Nemai Ghosh, Benodebehari Mukherjee  and Satyajit Ray,
presented by 1x1 Art Gallery

Set of Black and White Photographs

Last year I was sent a set of black and white photographs by Nemai Ghosh (1936), taken during the shooting of The Inner Eye by Satyajit Ray (1921-1992). The documentary was Ray’s homage to the Bengali painter Benodebehari Mukherjee (1904-1980). On examining the set, I was unsure as to what I could say meaningfully about it.  But as I gradually delved into these photographs a story began to unravel. That story was about the taking of these pictures and what they meant to the film-maker and the painter. -  Partha Mitter

Benodebehari Mukherjee

Born as he was with weak eyesight, Benodebehari underwent an eye surgery in 1956. The operation was successful but he completely lost his eyesight due to an accident during the period of recovery. Nothing could have been more tragic for an artist at the height of his powers, but he stood up to it with characteristic stoicism.

Nemai Ghosh (b. 8 May 1934) is best known as the photo-biographer of Satyajit Ray. From 1967 to 1992, the year that Satyajit Ray passed away, he photographed every aspect of the maestro at work. Ghosh photographed the great masters Jamini Roy, Ramkinker Baij and Benodebehari Mukherjee over the years 1969 and 1970.

LIMITED EDITION BOOK

Essay  by Professor Partha Mitter

Professor Partha Mitter is Research Professor of Art History at the University of Sussex. His research focuses on connections between Indian art and national identity and he was recently awarded an AHRB research grant for a collaborative project entitled Modernity and National Identity in Art: India, Japan and Mexico, 1860s-1940s. Professor Mitter has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and he also lectures around the world, notably Columbia University, Princeton University, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Recent publications include Indian Art (Oxford University Press, 2001); Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922: Occidental Orientations (Cambridge University Press, 1994); Much Maligned Monsters: a History of European Reactions to Indian Art, (University of Chicago Press, 1992).

Art>Pure Evil: The Nightmare Series

Pure Evil: The Nightmare Series
23 January - 28 February 2014

We are pleased to announce an exhibition of recent work by the increasingly influential artist PURE EVIL.
The exhibition consists of recently produced original work, hand-finished unique prints and limited edition prints. All of the pieces are from the artist's signature Nightmare series and available for sale.

About the Artist

In the past 5 years PURE EVIL has exhibited worldwide in China, Russia, Mongolia, Brazil, USA and all over Europe. As an 'Accidental Gallerist' he has produced over 50 different exhibitions with emerging and established artists at the Pure Evil Gallery and internationally. PURE EVIL lives and works in east London.

About the Series

“One day I received an email from Dafen - a ‘copy village’ in Guangdong province, China. The email contained thumbnails of different paintings they could reproduce for me from every famous artist in history. There were three Andy Warhol pieces in the list – a Jackie, a Liz and an Electric Chair. His whole output had been distilled to three beautiful, dark and pixelated images. 

The starting point for my series of Nightmare paintings were these 3 Warhol images. I began with an image of Liz Taylor’s hair from a Warhol painting, and mixed it up with an image of a girl I found online who dressed as a ghoulish playboy bunny one halloween. Liz died a few months later and the series gained momentum and has grown from there.”

See more works by PURE EVIL and our range of limited edition prints here. 

Preview-Pierre Joseph / Jef Geys-24.01.2014

Maintenant ('Now') It is no small feat on the part of Pierre Joseph to have indexed his works to a constantly renewed now. He does not simply take up the meaning that Walter Benjamin attributed to the dialectical image, whose 'legibility' is a function of its encounter with a 'present'1 , Joseph subverts the terms of it: it is the now, in its contextual, technological and cultural modalities, which determines the modalities of the artwork2. Although Pierre Joseph was one of the artists in the 90s involved in a redefinition of the practice and the thinking behind the work of art3 , he still persists in the undertaking.

Thus the main work in the exhibition, Endless Photographs, is a series of snapshots taken in the Normandy forest near where he lives, using one of the latest models of camera, but with no attention paid to lining up the shots, no adjustments, and using modern methods of production for printing and production (developing and framing via a web site). What he reveals with this method is a now deprived of the romantic atmosphere of all forests, and of this forest in particular, which Barbey d’Aurevilly had described in a supernatural light in his novel The Bewitched (1854).

In creating some new 'living reactivatable characters'4, after nearly ten years, Joseph seems to be applying this act of temporal redefinition to his own work. Although, at the time, he was referencing video games, the meaning is brought up to date in terms of today's digital world, and also by questions associated with the 'tableau vivant' or 're-enactment' (once again contemporary), which he re-contextualises as soon as he raises them.

Pierre Joseph seems, then, to invite us to entertain such a plasticity of meaning that he allows doubt to creep in as to whether there is any meaning at all, and the work invites one to ponder on the profundity of everyday things that he alone has understood. Looked at from this angle, his research aims less to discover anything, than to short-circuit all idea of virtuosity in order to reach this unattainable degree. As a consequence, Mon Nom est personne, the last work in the exhibition, resonates all the more.
1. "Every present day is determined by the images that are synchronic with it: each "now" is the now of a particular recognizability." Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, (tr. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin) N, 3, 1, p 463.
2. In this vein the title of the catalogue raisonné of his works, Oui Non Peut-être 'Yes No Maybe' (Presses du Réel, 2011) picks up on the possible answers to invitations to Facebook events.
3. The works will be presented as such in the Stéphanie Moisdon and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster exhibition at the Centre Pompidou Metz, devoted to art of the 90s.
4. A living reactivatable character can be reactivated by an actor disguised as the character in the photograph, but the two must never be presented simultaneously.



Jef Geys's œuvre, which he began in 1947 at the age of 13, has always tended to hug the shadows, to camouflage itself and approach the categories of contemporary art from the rear.

His work is firmly anchored in autobiography; it resides in the margins of aesthetic contemplation and creates a constant dynamic somewhere between popular culture and drawing attention to the banal.

In favouring 'the world as support' and in his attempt at a synthesis of art and life, Jeff Geys (though he makes no claim to it) belongs in the tradition of Fluxus.

Since 1958 he has been making a meticulous inventory of all his works, which he orders according to subject, genre, year and number.

Out of this archive, Jef Geys extracts the themes for his new exhibitions, which are really just one way of inspecting and reactivating autobiographical events and old works in a new context that will re-energise the meaning.

At Air de Paris, Geys will be presenting two projects that closely combine official documents and personal history: 'cow passports' (les passeports de vaches) was developed in 1965 and 1966 when Jef Geys, who was helping his cattle merchant father-in-law, drew and registered the physical characteristics of the latter's cows, thus providing them with an identity.

For Air de Paris, he has created a new installation, with 21 new cow passports.

!questions de femmes! ('!women's questions!') is a series that Geys developed in the early 60s when he was a teacher of Positive Aesthetics at a children's school in Balen, where he lived in Belgium. Geys drew up a list of questions that women might ponder about their identity; then gave them to his pupils for discussion. In the 1980s these !questions de femmes! were adapted for contemporary art and have now been translated into 13 languages. The Hindi version will be on display in the Gallery shop window.

For the exhibition, a special Air de Paris edition of the newspaper KEMPENS Informatieblad will be published.

Jef Geys rejects the excessive reverence for works of art that goes on in exhibition catalogues and has been publishing the newspaper KEMPENS Informatieblad since 1971 (KEMPENS is the region of Belgium where he lives). He often produces them in line with his exhibitions.

These newspapers act as a kind of diary; they log, in no particular order, the elements necessary to understanding his surroundings, things he wonders about, things he is curious about, and his works.