It’s a good sign when an art show has a bit of a scent. Too often, art exists outside of the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It hangs on perfectly smooth, white walls. It sits in mostly empty, climate-controlled spaces. Even when there’s texture and novel materials at play, viewers have to keep their hands to themselves.
But a sniff? A sniff is allowed.
Before the May 29 opening of Service Tension, a group show at the San Francisco Arts Commission main gallery, the smells emitting from some of the artworks were strong enough that windows were opened. A month in, the scents that remain are less aggressive, more intriguing: leather, polyurethane rubber, silicone and linen.
It’s fitting that Service Tension engages as many senses as possible. The show, curated by Elena Gross and Leila Weefur, opens with a quote from “Butch Blow Job,” an essay by Jenny Johnson: “May whomever needs to hear this — feel more, feel further.”
The exhibition is filled with abstracted scenes of queer intimacy and desire, starting with an enormous photograph by Xandra Ibarra, part of her ongoing Hickey Series. In the image, a person lifts dark hair to reveal the tell-tale burst blood vessels on their back, while someone else’s tattooed hand rests gently on their neck.
That combination of spikiness and tenderness is echoed in Ricki Dwyer’s dyed textile work Bound (-), where perceived softness is negated by the steel nails that keep the piece pulled taut over stretcher bars. Whether weaving, binding, draping or piercing, the six artists of Service Tension all manipulate their materials in precisely controlled — and titillating — ways.
