The early-18th century English Spectator invited its readers to play a particularly loaded version of I Spy:
"A Man of Polite Imagination is let into a great many Pleasures that the Vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a Picture, and find an agreeable Companion in a Statue. He meets with a secret Refreshment in a Description, and often feels a greater Satisfaction in the Prospect of Fields and Meadows, than another does in the Possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of Property in everything he sees, and makes the rude uncultivated parts of Nature administer to his Pleasures: So that he looks upon the World, as it were, in another Light, and discovers in it a Multitude of Charms, that conceal themselves from the generality of Mankind." (Addison & Steele 1711-14:III, 538)
Mechanical reproduction allows me to extend this proprietary fantasy. As long as I don't use a tripod or flash (the institutional rules of the game), I can claim the pleasure of ownership of any object from the Louvre, Victoria and Albert, or Metropolitan Museums. These pictures are also about sex. I am obsessed by the way that neoclassical sculptors depicted erogenous zones in polished marble. In particular, I seek out imaginary anatomy: the pert tail of a faun, the death wound of an Indian warrior maiden, the point of contact between Leda's thigh and the swan's webbed caress.
All works are c-prints, in editions of 6.