Annie Sprinkle explored sex in many forms, at the age of 18 she started as a prostitute, later on she became a porn star and played in over 150 porn films. One of her most known movies during her porn career was the film “Deep inside Annie Sprinkle”, a film where the female was the center of the attention, quite remarkable during those early 80’. At the same time Annie started to develop herself as an artist, doing performances and conceptual art projects, inspired by Dada and Fluxus. With her work she intentionally closed the gap between porn, sex and art, continuing her sexual exploration for a different audience.
In 2002 Annie Sprinkle received her Ph.D. in Human Sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human sexuality, in San Francisco. She was now a sexologist and the first porn star in history with a doctoral degree. Her unique approach of sex, life and art, for a very broad audience, with a provocative, humorous, but positive twist is still vital and appealing today.
Annie Sprinkle is currently working on a project called “Love Art Laboratory”, together with her partner Elizabeth M. Stephens. The project has a duration of seven years, each year with it’s own theme and color, part of the performance is a wedding between Annie and Elizabeth. The main theme of the whole project is the exploration of Love as Art, it’s also a response to the violence of war, and the anti-gay marriage movement. This year’s theme is Sexuality and Creativity, the theme of 2005 was Security and Survival.
Annie gave me permission to select a couple of images to go along with this article, not an easy task. Her work is so diverse, it’s nearly impossible to make a compilation of images that gives an idea of her oeuvre as a whole, so I chose them quite randomly.
Photo credits: image 1,7 Joegh Bullock, 2,3 Annie Sprinkle, image 4 Amy Audrey, Art Direction: Leslie Barany, image 5, 6 Leslie Barany.
Love Art Laboratory
The website of Annie Sprinkle
