‘Les Offrandes de Boris Vansier’ (The Offerings of Boris Vansier) caused quite a stir when it was first exhibited at Iris Clert’s Paris gallery in 1967. French networks and newspapers hotly debated whether the art was erotic or pornographic. The body of work which started life as Les Offrandes in the 1960s evolved into the largest and most significant series in Vansier’s corpus. A year later Phyllis and Eberhardt Kronhausen included some of Vansier’s work in their much-publicised International Exhibition of Erotic Art in Copenhagen; they also interviewed the artist in their book The Complete Book of Erotic Art. It is worth reminding ourselves of the reception of these works in the context of the ‘swinging sixties’, and asking how much has – or has not – changed between then and the age of Me Too and the criminalisation of non-consensual activities such as upskirting.
Eberhardt Kronhausen
What is your experience of exhibiting your erotic works in public?
Boris Vansier
When I had a private show of the Offrandes in Paris, it looked like an obsessive painter showing his obsessive work; it didn’t look like an erotic show. It might have struck people as some kind of oddity in painting. The same paintings here are in context with other artists’ works, and suddenly they fall into place and simply come across as another contribution in another art medium. And seeing this gives me a great sense of satisfaction and vindication after the previous negative experience.
Eberhardt Kronhausen
What do you think the effect on the public will be from this exhibition of erotic art?
Boris Vansier
I think it will have an extremely healthy effect. First the public will have the unavoidable and very necessary shock you always get when confronted with something completely new and unexpected. The public will find out that throughout the ages there has been a constant, though officially suppressed, interest in erotic subject matter on the part of the artists. I am not saying that eroticism is the only subject and object of art, but it is an important one which should not be left out. I think you and the museum are very courageous to call the exhibition an exhibition of erotic art. It would have been easier, no doubt, to make an exhibition, like it has often been done before, which includes, among other things, erotic art. But it would have been dishonest. I think it is time that the public face the fact that erotic art has always existed – you can go back to the Greeks and the Egyptians, you don’t have to stop at the seventeenth century; erotic art started since man expressed himself in art.
Eberhardt Kronhausen
One more thing. We’ve called it an exhibition of erotic art, but some journalists have been calling it a pornographic exhibition. Would you care to state what you feel is the main difference between an erotic picture and a pornographic picture, if any?
Boris Vansier
The only difference is in the mind of the people. It’s what they make it to be, depending on their own background. It’s not one thing or another in itself. So, I would say there is no specific difference between pornography and erotic art, because you can call anything pornographic if you like.
