Gallery Carre
Sex Workers’ Art on Display
Apr 30th, 2025 by Audacia Ray
SOHO. On a rainy Sunday afternoon recently, a dozen young women gathered to transform the tools of their sex work trade into works of art. Over cupcakes and strawberries, they swapped stories as they nailed, glue-gunned, painted, pierced, googly-eyed and gashed variously sized toys. Beads scattered to the floor. “We should get some slave to clean that up,” said one dominatrix, laughing.
Their handiwork will be on display as part of Sex Worker Visions II, an annual art show by sex workers to benefit $pread magazine and the artists.
“Both $pread and Sex Worker Visions celebrate the experiences and cultures of sex workers in hopes that people will be more interested in what sex workers have to say about the industry than in what the mainstream media has to say about us,” said Audacia Ray, $pread executive editor and the show’s curator.
The exhibition aims to highlight 15 skilled photographers, watercolorists and sculptors who — like most artists — must hold day jobs to make ends meet. Even when the work is often by night.
“It’s outsider art,” said Ray, 27. And not necessarily erotic. “Our experiences aren’t always sexy. Quite to the contrary.”
One contribution, “Platforms,” speaks to the perpetual danger faced by sex workers. Created by the Aphrodite Project, this pair of platform shoes has a global-positioning system and 911 panic button embedded in its 3-inch heels. Gallery visitors can try them on and feel what it is like to walk in a sex worker’s shoes, especially haunting in light of the unsolved murders of four Atlantic City prostitutes.
Ray, who’s completing her master’s in American Studies at Columbia University, knows both worlds. “The idea that ‘nice girls don’t’ is part of the stigma of the industry,” she said. “Some of the nicest, smartest folks I’ve met have been sex workers, and many of them are people you would never suspect of being involved in the industry.”
Gazing at her friends’ creations, Ray smiled. She plans on taking the collection to San Francisco’s Center for Sex and Culture this summer. “That’ll be fun for airport security.”
Details:
The show opens tomorrow at Arena Studios, 407 Broome St. , Suite 7A
Opening May 1, 2007 from 6 to 9 pm
Runs through July 28, 2007