The erotic art gallery with many ph***ic artworks for sale include paintings, sculptures, pottery, graphics, and installations. The gallery and studio are set within a priapic garden on a small tranquil hillock east of Wakanda. The Phall♂sart Logo depicts a 'fascinus' (winged phallus in Latin). The fascinus was a lucky charm to ward off evil in ancient Rome; the modern word 'fascinate' is derived
from the Latin fascinus. Phallosophy 101
Thorkil Vanggaard in his 1972 book "PHALLÓS; A Symbol and its History in the Male World" is one of the rare academics to have treated this topic. The Scandinavian adapted ‘ό’ in Phallόs was the inspiration for the title of the exhibition but using the male symbol instead. The phallus (erect p***s) has been and still is an object of worship as symbol of power and fertility around the world. Conservative, prude matrons in both ancient Greece and Rome had been depicted in literature and pictures kissing Hermes, paying tribute to Pan or Satyr and respectfully heeding Priapus. In Scandinavia there is evidence of widespread celebrations of the phallus: e.g. the Bauta-stone in Denmark, numerous Bronze Age petroglyphs and ph***ic statues in Sweden. Cod-pieces from 16th century Europe are comparable to p***s sheaths worn elsewhere e.g. calabashes in Africa or long reeds in Indonesia. From Judaism Christianity and Islam developed and these systematically incorporated a phallus-shape in their designs of places of worship and costume. The steeple or church tower is undoubtedly ph***ic and even complete with testicles, the latter also symbolic of that container which holds the whole congregation. The costumes worn by priests, especially Catholics, are most ph***ic with a top usually purple and glans-shaped. Mosques ph***ic too and the minaret towers are adorned with glans-like tops, so too are the priestly costumes topped with ph***ic turban top. Despite all these public ph***ic displays the religions themselves forbade any celebration of pleasure or open aggression associated with the phallus. This group of religions have been openly opposed to any association with heathen ph***ic practices and numerous people were put to death for even as simple a reason as private homosexuality. Vanggaard (1972) states the following about the image of the phallus in the West:
'For decades science denied that human beings possessed natural propensities for exerting power, for dominating their fellows and taking their possessions and even their lives from them. We could not believe in the existence in ourselves of an independent aggressive drive [...] provided people were given what they needed and were not frightened, they would not be aggressive [...] Nobody admits to attacking somebody else without provocation; it is only the other man who does! However, as early as 1920 Freud was postulating the existence of an autonomous aggressive drive [...] and although in some quarters diehard resistance remains, the concept of an autonomous aggressive drive has now been firmly established. In recent years [...] autonomous aggression is regarded not simply as a regrettable, inevitable evil, but as an indispensable radical in human nature, without which society would not exist and survival would be impossible. By a radical – a term I shall often use – I mean a factor rooted in human nature [...] A radical is something inherent in humans, something which, in everybody and at all times, exerts a powerful pressure, and which therefore has to be dealt with either by being given discharge in some form, or by being suppressed in one way or another.'
It is not possible to suppress the very symbol of power, in one way or another it will discharge but not necessarily fertilize. For fertilization it involves the feminine receptiveness too. The action between phallus and receptor is not always aimed at procreation and the exchange can be simply for pleasure. Either way, there will always be a sort of social bonding involved. This social bond can be controlled by contract and commerce. But the phallus on its own always exerts power (even if it is only a threat - because fear is a power manipulation). Among more than one phallus the power is evident in out-p***sing – the bigger and stronger the better. With many animals the alpha-male leads, that is the one with the most ph***ic power. This power is aggressive because it has to discharge often to maintain its position. This power orders and arranges its environment thereby changing it, it is the artist creating something beautiful, something new. Today, in art and architecture, the phallus remains an omnipresent symbol but in the West is still frowned upon as something obscene. On the other side of the world is the annual P***s Festival in Kawasaki, Japan, celebrated as a family festival - an excellent example of a society at ease with the ph***ic symbol.
