We arrive at Palácio Anjos to visit the Amor Veneris exhibition, curated by Marta Crawford and Fabrícia Valente. We enter the spacious building, which has two possible paths. On one side we have a harsh journey of non-consented love, on the other a trip to the senses and the feminine repertoire of consented love.

The difference between these two paths is clear. On the non-consented route, highly difficult topics are addressed: female genital mutilation, sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence.

On the consented side, we are surprised by the variety of stimuli, meanings, stories, narratives. As far as female sexual pleasure is concerned, this is an exhibition divided into several themes tackled with pedagogical sensitivity. Brain, Skin, Clitoris are the exhibition’s main items. The Brain commands desire, in the biological, psychological, and social domains. Then, the Skin, the largest human organ, approximately 2 square metres in size and with vast nerve endings, is also the largest recipient of sensory experiences, besides the female sexual organ.

Finally, part of the exhibition is dedicated to the Clitoris, the female sexual organ whose sole function is to provide pleasure to the woman.

The exhibition is large in artworks and dimension. Given the sensitivity of the subject, the curators opted for a delicate approach. Throughout the exhibition, we find high, soft curtains, with a velvety touch, attenuating the abrupt transitions between the pieces, sometimes with a strong visual impact. There are sensitive themes that cannot be presented crudely. To see them, we must do our part and look for them. The visitor’s attitude is questioning, as is the path of sexuality itself. For Fabrícia Valente the “exhibition is designed to be a pedagogical experience”. This does not mean that it must be a linear or unidirectional exhibition.

It is a route with different ramifications. As many as the senses can find. The layout was handled by the architectural studio Os Espacialistas and the architects’ involvement is clear. As soon as we enter the venue, we see an irreverent interior architectural design that alienates us from the palace’s anatomy. The architecture studio creates new structures to respond to the exhibition’s narratives. The high curtains dividing the works also remind us of the intimacy of private places where the voyeur’s gaze pushes the draperies aside. It either pushes them aside or covers them up, in a repetitive gesture, a playful and shameless exercise that has been a feature of painting for centuries. An example is the dresses that the maids look for in the chest for the naked woman in Titian’s Venus of Urbino, 1538.

Or the work Mary Magdalene, 1535, by the same painter, where the saint covers her body with her long, wavy hair. At the same time, she shows powerful and eroticising breasts.

In painting, there is a constant revealing exercise, which is replicable in the way we experience the Amor Veneris exhibition.

Julião Sarmento’s work in the exhibition, Déjà Vú, recalls this seductive game.

In black and white we see a reproduction of the Venus of Urbino, not asleep, as in Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus, but with her gaze turned towards the spectator. To those who, on the outside, watch the naked figure. Her gaze does not seem surprised by the “non-consenting” voyeurism of the character for whom the work was painted, but rather confirms the lovers’ complicity, the recent sharing of intimacy.

What most impresses those who see this magnificent work by Titian is the participation in the – shared – intimacy, where we take the lover’s place and, at the same time, the observer’s. We also feel the maids’ presence and how the female figure, striking a vulnerable pose, seems to have little choice but to conform to the social rules.

Titian’s painting reminds us how art ceaselessly served the patriarchy. In the painting, the naked woman was depicted to please the man. She presented herself to serve him and bred within her the self-criticism to appear as the man would wish.

In short, the naked woman represented by so many painters, and not only by the renowned master Titian – as we see in Manet’s Olympia, Rubens’ Hélène Fourment, Bronzino’s Venus and Cupid, Ingres’ Grande Odalisque – is seen by the observer as an offering, as a figure who surrenders herself without objection, according to the male imagination where there is an unlikely consent, in the form of images of women who exist to be seen by the spectator. As John Berger would say, they become objects or showcases. Also for Berger, the passive portrayed woman confirms the role of a woman who passively displays herself. The man, on the other hand, holds an active posture.

This unilateral relation of pleasure is well explained by this author, especially in his work Ways of Seeing: “The man acts, the woman appears. The man looks at the woman. Women look at themselves while being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women, but also women’s relations with themselves”.

Janine Antoni’s installation Lipslick shows chocolate lipsticks. It appears to eloquently illustrate this thought. Lipsticks embellish women and are lust-enhancing tools. But what is the greatest pleasure for women? To become desirable to the point that lipstick is such an instrument of pleasure?

Ana Pérez-Quiroga’s installation looks like a simulation of a bar or meeting place. Colour dominates the entire interior room. The light comes from the neon words fixed on the walls, with seduction and love messages. There is a round bed that seems to recall the consented love and dialogue between two people. Here there is room for joy, seduction, far from domination and competition. There is only the opportunity for two people to meet and desire each other in a free and spontaneous way. The walls of the installation/comportament ¡No te vayas! are striking, given the wallpaper patterns. They remind us of the femininity of decorations made by women in last century’s post-war period, but in a context that no longer implies male domination.

The exhibition has two manifestos: the manifesto without consent and the manifesto with consent. Accompanied by drawings by Isabel Baraona.

The Amor Veneris exhibition has renowned artists with cohesive and pertinent narratives. They are Alice Geirinhas, Álvaro Leite Siza, Ana Mendieta, Ana Rito, Annette Messager, Clara Menéres, Ernesto de Sousa, Fátima Mendonça, Fernanda Fragateiro, Inês Norton, Jamie McCartney, Janine Antoni, Julia Pietri, Gang du clito, Julião Sarmento, Laure Prouvost, Louise Bourgeois, Lourdes Castro, Maria Beatriz, Maria Souto de Moura, Marta María Pérez, Noé Sendas, Paula Rego, Polly Nor, Sara Maia, Sophia Wallace, Sue Williams, Susana Mendes Silva, and Teresa Crawford Cabral. As well as previously unseen works by Ana Pérez-Quiroga, Ana Rocha de Sousa, Error-43, perfumer Cláudia Camacho, d’Os Espacialistas, among others: Lori Malépart-Traversy, Rachel E. Gross, Rankin & Trisha Ward, Daphné Leblond & Lisa Billuart Monet, and Erika Lust.

Amor Veneris – Viagem ao Prazer Sexual Feminino is at Musex – Museu Pedagógico do Sexo, Palácio Anjos, until December 30.