Public Sex

Naples, late 70s. In the streets of the city, scandalous and indecent posters suddenly appear, then quickly disappear, replaced by new images. They lasted only two years before being censored. The posters were taken from pornographic films, with naked, obscene and tempting female bodies. However, they did not only focus on women’s bodies, but also (and especially) on male desire and the dominant macho imagery of those years. Marialba Russo was immediately intrigued by these images and decided to photograph them. Her research quickly became methodical. She took these photos almost secretly, generating an obsession that became a systematic collection, a heterogeneous corpus made of different shots, poses, looks, all held together by an exaggerated, comic (or tragic) eroticism, by a one-sided and blatant male representation.