‘Jane McAdam Freud Relative Relations’

P. 39 Q: The figure of the masturbating man is a striking opening to the exhibition. Freud wrote about cases in which masturbation was taboo. Does your treatment of the subject differ?

JMF: Well nothing much has changed. Perhaps the small change is that now sex is ranking behind death as our main taboo. I have certainly used the ‘taboo’ aspect of the subject to emphasise that we will be entering yet another taboo area - that is ‘therapy’ indeed the symbolic house of therapy. The hope is that, duly knocked off balance the viewer is woken up to experiencing the works. The piece is called ‘One Plus One’ as in self and other or self and self. Indeed one plus one also refers to different sides of the self that are the reasoning, intelligent self and the instinctual, unconscious self.

Q: Would you say masturbation is a kind of ultimate relationship between a man and his penis?

JMF: Interesting question but another man could better answer that? These relationships are always relative and this piece is definitely open to interpretation. I was thinking more about masturbation as a metaphor for therapy, as in ‘spilling one’s guts’. Last time you saw the piece - an over life size hollow figure in clay it was seated. Strangely though, it has since collapsed, one could say climaxed and is now in a post coital prostate pose.