Oakton women's art exhibition examines how gender influences desire

From food to the erotic, desire takes many different forms, and gender is implicated in the process, which raises a host of provocative questions.

How do gender and sexuality - and the power structures inherent in the construction of these identities - affect our experiences of passion and pleasure? How do we experience passion and pleasure beyond the sexual? Can rigid binaries of male/female, gay/straight be transformed into a more fluid, flexible, liberated experience of desire? Do women really love chocolate more than they love men?

Women's and Gender Studies at Oakton Community College, in cooperation with the college's Koehnline Museum of Art, tackles these questions at the free art show Gendering Desire: Liberation, Power, and Pleasure. This juried exhibit, featuring more than 65 women artists from around the world, opens Thursday, Oct. 2, with a gala reception featuring the artists from 5 to 8 p.m. The exhibit runs through Friday, Oct. 24.

"Our artists were challenged with many provocative issues, and we were not disappointed by the results we saw," said Kathleen Carot, Oakton's Women's and Gender Studies coordinator. "The works display an astounding diversity of medium, technique, and point of view. Most striking was the passionate commitment to art and ideas reflected in the submissions. It is with great pride and pleasure that we will be presenting the work of these talented women."

The museum, 1600 E. Golf Road, Des Plaines, is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The exhibition is funded in part by grants from the Illinois Art Council, a state agency, and the Oakton Educational Foundation.

For information, contact Kathleen Carot at (847) 376-7061, or kcarot@oakton.edu.