Marquis: Contez Fleurette

The sweet nothings of the Marquis De Sade

Marquis: Contez Fleurette has been created with a sincere appreciation of the Marquis De Sade's writings and libertine philosophy. Overshadowed by the charged content of his writings and notorious sexual dalliances, the paramount virtue of freedom of expression is often overlooked, if not altogether lost from the annals of history. As a result, the Marquis as a relevant contemporary figure has become a flattened cartoon: a symbol of sexual perversion. Arising in this tautological mess: the symbol that creates significance also obscures reality, alter the symbol (take away the villain aspect) and the relevance dies along with the reality. A reputation, trapped between relevance and death, through a war of eroticism and freedom.

Miscellaneous SMUT Gallery

The work in this show provides groundwork for a solution: maintain the Marquis as a symbol of depravity, redefine the virtues of depravity.

At face value, Marquis: Contez Fleurette may appear to be little more than hyperbolic smut; embracing the controversial sexual perversions of the Marquis for entertainment purposes only. But it’s through these beastly sex acts that I tell story of the Marquis and his struggles for extreme freedom. The charged language of taboo and other forms of cultural defiance are not trivial, they are essential pillars in any meaningful discussion about societal morality. These works are a continued rhetoric with the moral institutions that antagonized the Marquis, and indeed freedom itself, years ago.