Fukt #16
Every issue of contemporary drawing magazine Fukt is a beautiful, themed compendium of contribitions from different artists, but with this latest issue they’ve excelled themselves. Fukt might mean ‘damp’ in Norwegian and Swedish, but this issue, The Sex Issue, takes full advantage of the English meaning of the word.
A 228-page series of images of sex will bring to mind different things for different readers. Sex is a minefield of likes and dislikes, and images of sex can easily vere into the outrageous, competitively explicit or simply squeamish. What’s so satisfying about this issue of Fukt is that it avoids all those possibilities. Multiple styles of drawing portray acts of sex, thoughts of sex, attitudes towards sex and anxiousness about sex. But what unites all the works is the love of sex. This is a happy publication, a million miles from the depressing pornographic sex more traditionally seen in print.
This upbeat tone is set by the title of the issue, ‘Dirty Drawings’, and caught by the cover design, a cattish face diecut to reveal the magazine title beneath. The first page features a couple naked but for a wrist watch, and the speech bubble, ‘Time for sex.’ Thereafter it is page after page of serious art, funny art, comics, cartoons, sketches, collages and doodles. Archive work from Keith Haring sits next to new work from Paul Davis as well as younger artists. It’s a fabulous creative celebration and we’re happy to present it as our Magazine of the Week.