I’ve been driving by, walking past, and sadly neglecting Luis de Jesus’s gallery Seminal Projects.  But last Thursday we couldn’t resist popping in to check out the show entitled:

Cocked!  The Possessed Male: Object of my Desire / Art and the Masculine Revolution.

Ambitiously, the show featured works from 21 artists, most of whom live and work locally in San Diego.  With this many artists it could have been unruly but all of the pieces and their ideas about masculinity actually fit quite nicely into the gallery.  Most of the traditional thoughts on masculinity were there, guns, sharks, muscles and yes, male anatomy.   

Especially touching was the pill size box with Barbie Doll size boobs inside.  The small size of the piece and non attention to idealized breast size or shape, made me think of the piece as a shrine to a boy's memory of his first sight of boobs.  This may not have been the intention of the artist, but this thought made me smile. 

In fact the whole thing made me smile.  It was nice to be in a gallery without pretension but not lacking in its attention to detail and art that was engaging.  The crowd was fun and friendly and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.  Drinking and conversation didn’t skip a beat when around 9:30, the gallery lights all went out.  Unphased, the crowd just headed outside to check out the man covered in gold standing on an oversized trophy. 

The Exhibit will be up until August 24th - view more pictures of the night in the Photo Gallery