Kinsey exhibits art on topics of war, sex, love

John Lyly may have famously penned the phrase “all is fair in love and war,” but he missed the sex and humor.

The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction’s new exhibit “Love and War” opened Friday in the Kinsey Institute Gallery in Morrison Hall. It includes photographs, comics, drawings and postcards, among other objects, from the American Civil War to the 21st century.

Catherine Johnson-Roehr, curator at the Kinsey Institute, said the exhibit was originally planned for fall in accordance with this year’s Themester, Making War, Making Peace. However, it was postponed due to a wiring project in the gallery and was rescheduled to open this month.

“We decided to go ahead with the show because we’d already put it together, and I think it’s a really great exhibition,” Johnson-Roehr said. “It pulls together materials that we haven’t shown before.”

Along with art, the exhibit pulls from library materials on the same topic. Magazines and newspapers reference issues with love, sex and war that occurred around the time some of the art was made.

Associate curator Garry Milius estimates that Kinsey’s permanent collection contains about 100,000 items, which had to be sorted through and selected to match the exhibit’s theme.

IU student Whitney Switzer, the Kinsey Gallery’s summer intern, did the initial search through the collection in May and June of 2011. Johnson-Roehr and Milius then had to narrow down the number of items she found to fit in the small gallery.

Some of the more memorable items can be found to the left directly after one enters the gallery.

On a small table lays a pamphlet about Old John Brown the abolitionist, circa 1859. Pictures and jokes fold out to reveal a final image of a large penis and the phrase “how he was hung.”

Johnson-Roehr said these were mass-produced and probably distributed in the South, where people disfavored Brown.

Adjacent on the table is an eight-page comic featuring Cary Grant titled “Male War Bride.” Johnson-Roehr said these comics were popular during the depression because they could be made at very little cost.

Commonly known as Tijuana bibles, these types of “smut” were illegal and were introductions to sex for many young people, she said.

Posters mock Hitler. Pamphlets warn soldiers of the dangers of venereal disease. Pin-up calendars feature busty blondes and words of encouragement.

Many photographs and drawings of sailors are also featured in the gallery. The photograph “Two Sailors” shows two sailors in full uniform, with the exception of their exposed penises touching one another.

Freshman Shelby Plummer said she took a class last semester called The Dating Game, which discussed the development of sexuality throughout history. She said the class discussed the change in sexuality in wartime, and she saw that reflected in the gallery.

“I think that was a really good example of how war does affect sexual nature and the history of sexuality,” Plummer said. “I found all of it really interesting.”

Johnson-Roehr said people might be surprised to find the humor embedded in art made during times of war.

“Being in the military can be stressful, and I think one way that people deal with stress with a difficult situation is through humor,” Johnson-Roehr said. “Their humor tends to be sexual in nature.”