Art and the Sex Doll

Last year, I fell in love with an endearing movie about a man who had a relationship with...well...a sex doll. While, the film, Lars and the Real Girl, was one of fiction, I always wondered if there was someone in this world who fashioned their life in a such a way. Well, guess what? There is.

Now exhibiting at the hpgrp gallery in NYC is a new photography series by Becky Yee entitled More Than a Woman. This somewhat voyeuristic exhibition invites the viewer into the life of a technically single (albeit "married in his mind") computer engineer who lives outside of Tokyo with his harem of Dutch wives (e.g. sex dolls). The photographs invoke questions about society's conceptions on intimacy, loyalty and relationships.

Is is possible for an inanimate object to be loyal?
Does one need a human connection to form intimacy?
Are relationships about real interactions between people
or can they exist solely in one's own mind?

"My ladies are always there for me," he said. "They never talk back, they are completely loyal, and if I get bored, I can just change the head." (Being the NYC dating scene, this doesn't sound half bad to me!)

More Than a Woman-FREE at the hpgrp gallery through March 15, 2009.

hpgrp gallery

32-36 little west 12th street, 2nd floor, new york ny 10014

(between washington st. & ninth av.)

tel. 212.727-2491 / fax 212.727-7030

Subway:	A, C, E, L 14th street
Bus:	M14 (9th ave. at 14th street) M20 (8th ave. abington street) M11 (bethune / hudson street)

hours: Tue-Sat 11am - 6pm / Sun 12pm - 6pm