Within booth C37, P·P·O·W will present a selection of rarely seen historical works on paper by Betty Tompkins as part of Art Basel Miami Beach Kabinett. Known for her unabashed portrayals of the female body and sexual desire, Tompkins has been shunned, censored, and celebrated in the five decades since she first began her iconic Fuck Paintings series. A self-proclaimed “accidental dissident,” Tompkins has ceaselessly questioned the rules of representation of women’s bodies and what governs them. By appropriating imagery created for male self-pleasure, she reframes long-held taboos and challenges discourses around content, style, and scale. In Defacements, a series of rarely seen works on paper from 1992-2003, Tompkins sourced pages from Taschen books on softcore portraiture such as Wheels and Curves: Erotic Photographs of the Twenties, recontextualizing the erotic and humorous poses of the figures within her own idyllic landscapes. Made during twelve summers teaching landscape painting at Arts Pro Tem, a residency in New Hampshire, this series is a crucial bridge between her early work and her ongoing Apologia and Women Words series, which pair pages from art historical textbooks with descriptions of sexual discrimination, intimidation, and violence towards women.