LAST October I attended Howard Fox's lecture "Treacherous Flesh: The Body in Contemporary Art" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I was expecting the unexpected, taking into account Fox's highly credible arts background (LACMA's curator of contemporary art for 23 years and at the Hirshhorn Museum before).

"Treacherous Flesh" (which boasts an "R-rating" in the press release) originated as a lecture Fox gave for a physicians group in the Valley a couple of years ago. The audience consisted of academics of a different sort, the type who wanted to learn more about the idealized woman of the Renaissance, and not necessarily about "Cloaca" — a poop machine designed by Belgium artist Wim Delvoye — or artist Orlan's journey of plastic surgery. The response he received at that lecture only reaffirmed what Fox most likely already knew: He needed a more sophisticated audience.

Fox agreed to an interview to talk about his current projects and sex. We met in Beverly Hills for lunch, where eyebrows were surely raised as eavesdroppers overheard our conversation about eroticism in the art world. Fox doesn't see sex in art as having the same restrictions as it once did. "Sex has been so assimilated into the art world, and the popular culture at large."

Fox references the New York art duo, Type A (Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin), who are both heterosexual, married and with children. They work together, exploring masculine sexuality and what it means for two males to depend on one another physically through their art. "It raises not so much erotic issues, but issues of sexuality," he says. To view the rest of this article, pick up a copy of Artillery Magazine your local art gallery or subscribe now for home delivery.