On erotica - Guy Lane in The Guardian (Thanks to my friend P.):

‘It was only by chance that the artist-curator David Trullo was working on a temporary installation at Madrid’s National Museum of Decorative Arts on the day in 2017 that a sealed case, unopened for 80 years, arrived from the ministry of finance. With no means of tracing the original owner or their family, it had lain in a bureaucratic and financial limbo until sufficient time had passed for its opening to be legally permissible.
The contents of this inadvertent and startling time capsule are now the subject of an exhibition, Álbum de Salón y Alcoba (The Bedroom and Dressing Room Album) installed by Trullo at the museum as part of Photoespaña, the city’s annual celebration of photography.
The case contained domestic items, clothing, shawls, toiletries and a collection of photographs belonging to a couple who had married on 29 July 1922. Little is known about the pair, and for legal reasons even their identities, which Trullo knows, must remain undisclosed. Despite his efforts, he has been unable to find any information about them or their family after the mid-30s.’

(…)

‘As he examined the find, Trullo thought he had uncovered photographs of the wife posing with a third party, a cross dresser, before he slowly realised it was in fact the husband. “He is posing as a transvestite with his wife, and they’re playing together.”’

(…)

‘Trullo’s fascination with the couple’s behaviour around what he describes as “a very private sort of sex game between them” is historical rather than prurient. Many of the photographs on display, and certainly the more graphic examples, are partially obscured by the glassine paper they were originally wrapped in. They are exhibited alongside items suggestive of the era: an appropriately furnished bedroom sets the scene; the new cheap cameras marketed at the burgeoning amateur market are displayed, as are adverts for 1930s erotic photos, and pictures of music hall stars of the day.
That said, he also has one wary eye on the future. “What are our grandchildren going to keep or destroy or show?” he wonders. “Because – think about it – we all have a history and a background.”’

Read to article here.

We all have a history and a background and it’s good to think about your secrets and your secret belongings, before you know it, they’ll end a century later in a museum.

Some people think of themselves as God, others as porn star, if only for private use.

How many sex games are there that are not very private? Even in times of public confession most of the sex games remain – thank God – private.

My archives are at the University of Amsterdam. If there’s interest a few minor secrets (I have more fingers on my hands than secrets) will be revealed after my death, if a researcher is willing to sort through the papers. If not, that’s fine with me as well.