Defying Erasure and Straddling Worlds with Scientia Sexualis at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Ashton S. Phillips
TSQ (2025) 12 (3): 381–389.
Scientia Sexualis at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), is an exhibit that straddles multiple worlds and histories, from the eerily resonant fascist book burnings of an earlier era in dean erdman's 38 to the pre‐Hispanic homoerotic sculptures of Cartos Motta's Towards a Homoerotic Historiography to the bodies of enslaved Black women forced to endure medical experimentation in KING COBRA's After Her Tomb and Vesico Vaginal Fistula, to the glam‐pop, pink‐glitter pleasure present in Young Joon Kwak and Gala Porras‐Kim's Objects of Pleasure. Having opened in October 2024 before the presidential election and closed in March 2025 after the Trump administration's inauguration and first month in power, Scientia Sexualis also straddled two different worlds during its run at the ICA LA.
The historical and cultural range is a strength of the show that hits differently for me now than when it first opened...
1. Trans People Exist (in All Our Resplendent Complexity) and Have Always Existed
4. Art Is a Technology for Survival and a Defense to Eradication
Nicki Green, Three Fruitful Vines as a Fountain (installation view) (2024). Site-specific installation with glazed ceramic, hardware, and water, dimensions variable. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), 2024–25. Image courtesy of the artist and ICA LA. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Ashton S. Phillips; Defying Erasure and Straddling Worlds with Scientia Sexualis at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. TSQ 1 August 2025; 12 (3): 381–389. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-11822890
