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Pleasure Key Bressani at the Museum of Eroticism in Amsterdam
29 February 2012
Pleasure Key Bressani at the Museum of Eroticism in Amsterdam
In the heart of Amsterdam’s Red Light District, between architectural and symbolic contrasts, lies the Museum of Eroticism. Housed in a 17th-century former warehouse overlooking one of the city’s historic canals, the museum welcomes visitors with a neon sign and a stone plaque reading: “
An ironic and stimulating context
The museum spans three floors dedicated to international erotic art. Among photographs, illustrations, videos, curious objects, and works by famous artists such as Picasso and John Lennon, it offers a visual narrative of sexuality, provocation, and the aesthetics of desire. In one room, an erotic version of Snow White is projected on a loop. In another, a vending machine offers collectible artistic condoms.
Pleasure Key Bressani enters the permanent collection
In this rich environment of expressive freedom, in 2012 Stefano Bressani, known as the “Tailor of Art,” was invited to present a sculpture in the new section dedicated to contemporary erotic art. The work, titled Pleasure Key, is a stylized phallus, 50 cm high, covered in gold, with a base shaped like an antique key. A powerful symbol representing access to pleasure and the key to libido.
Pleasure Key Bressani immediately stood out for its originality. The piece was selected for the museum’s permanent collection, placed alongside Picasso’s erotic drawings. For the Pavia-born artist, it was an important recognition, linking his artistic research to the international scene and an unconventional context.
A work that continues to surprise
Even today, visitors send Bressani photographs taken next to the sculpture. Pleasure Key Bressani has become one of the museum’s most photographed and discussed works. Its strength lies in its ability to combine irony, provocation, elegance, and reflection through the skillful use of fabric, form, and symbolism.
This exhibition marked a decisive moment in the artist’s career. Three years later, in 2015, Bressani was selected to reinterpret Picasso’s Guernica in a sculptural key, with a work placed in a Spanish collection alongside names like Paolo Baratella and Giovanni Ceribelli.
Pleasure Key Bressani therefore represents a significant node in his poetics: a point of contact between body and art, provocation and spirituality, eros and creative intelligence.
