Artists coming to animation in the 1970s + 80s explored the proposition of representing bodies and sexuality through mediated, un-real images. From morphing bodies engaged in rapturous copulation (Desire Pie) to disembodied parts (The Club, Seed Reel), artists respond to the waning sexual revolution and the women’s movement, expressing agency and stimulation while at the same time depicting complex forms of desire. Ayoka Chenzira’s Hair Piece explores the filmmaker’s identity through a hilarious examination of beauty standards for black women and men. With the remove from photorealism affording artists the freedom to craft funny, shocking or abstract imagery, films like Dissipative Dialogues and Asparagus depict impossible anatomy and unusual couplings, opening the possibilities of sex as allegorical representation of creation, regeneration and the transferal of energy.

The Club George Griffin, 1975, 4m, digital

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy-Headed People Ayoka Chenzira, 1985, 10m, digital

Bust Bag Don Duga, 1964, 6m, 16mm

Dissipative Dialogues David Ehrlich, 1982, 3m, 16mm

Head George Griffin, 1975, 10m, digital

Tub Film Mary Beams, 1972, 2m, 16mm

Seed Reel Mary Beams, 1975, 16mm, 4 min, color, sound

Desire Pie Lisa Crafts, 1976, 5m, 16mm

Flesh Flows Adam Beckett, 1974, 6m, 16mm

Q&A with filmmaker Lisa Crafts