Working Girl On Selling Art and Selling Sex

The portrait of a young artist making both a living and a life

As a young artist trying to make a living in New York without sacrificing all her time to paying rent, Sophia Giovannitti turned to sex work: first, telling herself it was part of her art, and then quickly accepting it as simply the way to make the most money in the shortest possible time. Weaving between the art world and the sex industry, she learned how much the two markets have in common: both built on the buying and selling of creativity and desire, authenticity and intimacy. The power of each lies in believing—or pretending—they can provide meaning outside of monetary exchange.
 
In this searching and provocative work, moving from the author’s own experiences to political analyses and the workings of the contemporary art world, Giovannitti asks how we might face the great dilemma of the art and sex industries head on: what happens to desire, beauty, creativity, and autonomy when everything is a transaction? Giovannitti finds a way to commit her life to art, to intimacy, and to freedom on her own terms.

Sophia Giovannitti is a writer and artist based in New York. She has written on sex work and other topics for The New Inquiry, Document Journal, n+1, Jezebel, Vice, Bookforum, and SSENSE, among others. Through her ongoing series of performance-based studies, beginning with Untitled (Incall), a solo residency at Recess in Brooklyn from May–June 2021, and continuing with Incall: Study 2; Contract, a solo show at Duplex in New York, from March–April 2022, she  seeks to trouble and re-choreograph the flow of capital through the art  and sex industries. Her first short film, produced by Tourmaline, In Heaven: An Alternate Reality Game, premiered at the Athens Biennale in September 2021; her second short film, Dirty Calculations, premiered on the Cryptographic.Art platform in December 2021.