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Oct 19, 2024

Can a Vibrator Be Art? | Vogue

Products are independently selected by our editors. We may earn an affiliate commission from links. Before you step into “Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media,” an enticing exhibition at

Products are independently selected by our editors. We may earn an affiliate commission from links.

Before you step into “Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media,” an enticing exhibition at Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, let’s address the word intime, which anchors the French title: L’Intime. De la chambre aux résaux sociaux. You could be forgiven for instantly thinking of sex (intimate relations) or the body (intimate products). But intime encompasses more than the English translation, intimate.

This is simply one dimension of the show’s up-close-and-personal exploration. While visitors will find evocative Impressionist paintings of women bathing and rows of colorful vibrators tastefully presented behind glass, they will also discover that groovy sofas, blockbuster fragrances, feminist texts, security drones, and smartphones contribute to broader ideas around how we carve out and protect our own space and how the objects we surround ourselves with also invariably shape our sense of self.

The visit begins with a wall boasting a gargantuan keyhole glowing red—and yes, it is suggestive. Later on visitors will see Le Verrou (The Lock), Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s famous painting of a bedroom scene circa 1777 that portrays a virile, half-dressed young man bolting the door with one hand and groping his swooning lover in the other.

Yet there are other artworks in this show that qualify as demure: an empty room by Vilhelm Hammershøi or Édouard Vuillard’s portrait of a woman whose dress blends in with the wallpaper. This kind of toggling between titillation and isolation, raciness and restraint, recurs from one gallery to the next. On a purely aesthetic level, meanwhile, the show brims with design marvels: a cabinet from Eileen Gray, the recognizable Ultrafragola mirror with its pink undulating frame from Ettore Sottsass, elaborate vintage perfume bottles, an elegant water closet decorated with a blue botanical motif.

“Obviously, the MAD, in general, is related to the idea of the intimate—the objects here are inside the house most of the time,” said Christine Macel, the show’s lead curator who worked alongside Fulvio Irace, a historian in design and architecture. We are in the museum’s soaring nave, which has been configured with extra-large furniture: Standouts include a rare La Declive recliner from Pierre Paulin and the Tawayara Boxing Ring by Masanori Umeda for the Memphis Group. Visitors aren’t able to sit on them, alas, but they make the point that seating can encourage socializing, even “promiscuity.” On the flip side are pieces resembling human-size cocoons.

For Macel, it was essential that historical, cultural, and societal forces contextualize the 14 themes, which span “Bathtime” to “The Connected Bedroom.” Whether an 18th-century daybed or a present-day photo of artist Zanele Muholi gazing at her reflection while in bed, interior settings allow for the shedding of inhibitions.

Noticeably absent is fashion—not a trace of a bra or nightgown, never mind designer interpretations. “It would be lingerie, and this was not my subject,” says Macel. “This show is really about objects that are not worn but used. How to tell the relationship of a person to the intimacy of their clothes was not the idea.”

She did not, however, shy away from things of a more sexually explicit nature. Following signage advising certain audiences not to enter are wood-paneled rooms featuring snuff boxes detailed with erotic imagery, bawdy books, and the array of aforementioned intimate devices. Among the selection are sleek shapes conceived in collaboration with Marc Newson, Sonia Rykiel, and Matali Crasset that evidently prioritize design and pleasure in equal measure.

There are also two vibrators from the increasingly popular intimate-wellness brand Maude, which became a sponsor of the exhibition after the team reached out to founder Éva Goicochea. She flew from New York for the opening, and we met up following my walk-through. “These are objects that help us understand who we are,” she said, drawing my attention to the Brancusi-inspired form and the soft gray and darker green tones—less gendered aesthetics. In the best possible sense, there is an ordinariness to them, rather than the strange or more phallic shapes that make us want to secret these devices away. “This is a wonderful, enjoyable part of being human,” she said. “When I launched Maude, the idea was that it’s not about sex, it’s actually about intimate wellness.”

And what about those who are deprived of their objects? One room, “The Precarious Intimate,” sensitively depicts situations when people are stripped of their objects due to homelessness, migration, or imprisonment. Survival outerwear by Kosuke Tsumura emerges as the exception to the no-clothing rule, while Mathieu Pernot’s photos of migrants lacking shelter underscore how private space is not always available.

The final room of the exhibition shows open diaries, collected through the ages, along with a table where visitors can share their thoughts. After all, there is no interiority greater than the conversations we have with ourselves.

In Paris right now, this is not where expressions of intimacy end, which I realized a few days later when attending the “Pop Forever: Tom Wesselmann &…” exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. This exhibition provides a whole other perspective: Just beyond Wesselmann’s instantly recognizable aesthetics are his obsessions with assembling and enlarging objects, his insouciant American Nudes, and his use of actual toilet seats in his paintings. (Just as great: how the show features other artists, such as Mickalene Thomas, who put their own spin on these ideas minus the male gaze.) The shows are surprisingly complementary, but not necessarily because their contents are arousing. Both shows leave us with the impression that the more intimate we go, the freer we might feel.

“Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media,” is at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris until March 30, 2025. “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & …” is at the Fondation Louis Vuitton through February 24, 2025.