Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s groundbreaking research recognized erotica as vital evidence of our sexual experiences. Dr. Kinsey’s sex research library, a cornerstone of the Kinsey Institute, captures a broad spectrum of human sexual experience. Importantly, it reveals collective curiosity in understanding the complexities, challenges, and representations of human sexuality, the human body, and our desires and fantasies.
David Levinthal’s photographs and model kit figures, generously donated by Mr. Don Sanders in 2017, continue this exploration of human curiosity. His work reflects and contributes to our collective imagination, an “embodied desire.” Levinthal’s art captures through layers of imagined worlds of mystery, beauty, and intrigue. Today, our understanding of human experiences has expanded to our complex relationship with artifacts and inanimate objects. Levinthal’s insights into sexuality and desire are timely, insightful, and refreshing.
The Kinsey Institute’s vast repository of 650,000 plus items includes rare books, journals, manuscripts, photographs, art, objects, artifacts, paintings, sculptures, films, and archival records. These narratives of individuals, communities, and cultures tell stories of courage, pain, suffering, and wisdom. These works are donated by anonymous and ordinary individuals, or by prominent researchers and artists. We have research materials studying desires from scholars such as John Money, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, June Reinisch, John Bancroft, Julia Heiman, Erick Janssen, Patti Britton, Helen Fisher, and “Dr. Ruth” Westheimer. Our collections proudly feature renowned photographers such as Wilhelm von Gloeden, George Platt Lynes, Robert Mapplethorpe, Michael Rosen, Biron, Mariette Pathy Allen, and Art Myers. Our collections have documented their insights into the complexity and expression of human sexual desires.
The Institute for Sex Research was founded in 1947 by Dr. Kinsey. In 1982, it was renamed the Kinsey Institute in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction and the Institute now houses the world’s most extensive public collection on human sexuality. Under Dr. Justin Garcia’s directorship, the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections has become a dynamic, vital destination for those interested in exploring the multifaceted nature of human sexuality. As a breathing, living, and growing global destination, our collection serves scholars, researchers, students, filmmakers, and the public; it offers a unique and important space for intellectual, cultural, historical, artistic, and personal exploration of human sexuality.
This exhibition marks the 14th collaboration between the Kinsey Institute and the Grunwald Gallery since 1996. We are grateful to Rebecca Fasman, Jennifer Yamashiro, and Claude Cookman for their thoughtful, passionate, and beautiful curation. We also thank Linda Tien and her team at the Grunwald for their inspiring partnership. Again, we thank our donors for entrusting us with their treasured collections.
Liana Zhou, Director of Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections
Works consulted:
- Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior In the Human Male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1948.
- Yamashiro, Jennifer Pearson. Sex In the Field: Photography At the Kinsey Institute. Thesis (Ph. D.)–Indiana University, 2001.
- Allen, Judith A., et al. The Kinsey Institute: The First Seventy Years. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2017.