Jerry Vile, the principal mover behind the Dirty Show, may be the only Detroit renaissance man we know with a resume that sounds suspiciously like a lost episode from the “Twilight Zone.” He enjoyed brief sojourns at both Western and the USC Film School; crooned memorably in such bands as The Boners, The Big Time Country Orchestra, and 52 Devil Babies Born With Tails; started magazines here in the D ("to get in free everywhere"), most notably the still fondly remembered Orbit. Ten years ago he and several colleagues thought the Motor City's art scene and its collective libido needed a jump ... Welcome to Dirty Show X.
How did the Dirty show come into being?
I have always loved art, especially illustration, vintage and cutting edge illustrators, and I have always enjoyed sex -- which is great by yourself but more fun with others. I came up with Dirty because all the pretentious names for erotic art shows had been taken. That's a big problem with erotic art events.
They figure if they make it really academic and pompous -- and people are always trying to make it "classy” probably because deep down they are ashamed of sex or they aren't experimenting enough in the bedroom -- then the mainstream public will accept it more readily.
But that's all it was -- Dirty, a name. A theme around which artists could create art. It was Jeremy Harvey and Glenn Barr who also made it possible. And a lot of other people helped: Billy Hunter, Paul Snyder and Dean St. Souveir. We called the most interesting people we knew -- which was a lot of interesting people -- and most said, “Hell yes!”
And Dirty got bigger, and bigger and bigger -- because it was fun and more people wanted in. Art started coming in from all over the USA. We couldn't believe it. And then we went on-line and it went crazy. And now we have this monster of a show, with people flying in from sunny climates and over the ocean, people whose works I've seen in books and some I had only read about. We have a great rep. The credit has to go to Detroit -- things like this happen here, things that change culture. We just take it for granted unfortunately.
And what happened here is what is happening in Sydney, Zurich, Vancouver and Shanghai. The Dirty Show is going global. We have simultaneous shows, which are smaller shows -- first events like we had 10 years ago. We aren't making money off them because we've lost money for years. We did it for fun and I would like to think that that's the same reason we're doing it now.
Are you surprised that it got to the big ten?
I still can't believe it. If it wasn't for Jeremy Harvey, there wouldn't have been a Dirty Show 2 or 3. If it wasn't for Billy Hunter, there wouldn't have been a Dirty Show 4 at the Museum of New Art, which is the show that changed us. And if it wasn't for Dan Sordyl, there would not have been a Dirty Show at the Tangent, which solidified us. And if it wasn't for Gary Arnett, this show would be the biggest mess in the world, and it certainly wouldn't be international.
Which artists from Detroit have always been participants?
Besides Jeremy Harvey (who is ethically forced to participate), I think Camilo Pardo and Tim Caldwell may be the only people who have been in every single show since the beginning. Tim gets extra points because his mom was in the show one year. It seems almost every Detroit artist who isn't a complete tight-ass has been in the show.
Now there are people who do erotic art exclusively; they found us or vice versa. The first year we only had a few photographs -- Ewolf, Keith [Nowarth] from Noir Leather, Jun Pinot, and a couple of others. Now we have a who's who of erotic photography -- there will be more in this show than in any other exhibition in Dirty's history. We also have more performance artists this year than we've had in past shows.
Who excites you the most among the new breed?
Here is the sad part. There are so many entries, only about 10% of submissions make it into the show. And not only are we missing a lot of really great stuff, we are missing what could be prove to be the future of great erotic art.
Take photographer BT Charles, for instance. He entered the Dirty Show in our fourth year and has been in every show since then. His work from that first time probably would not make it in 2009; he's really come into his own in recent years.
He's been in Taschen Books and other important collections, is collected by major erotica collectors, featured in museums, has show overseas and his new work is so compelling it totally blows me away. It's something I have never seen before and it is very powerful- yet it is so beautiful at the same time, the colors and shadows of a Rembrandt.
Tracee Mae Miller is another promising artist to take note of. I promise we will be doing a show in the future that will bring all this back, we just have to. We have to encourage more people, because they can become great.
