‘There is nothing exotic or erotic about drawing someone in the nude’

• I SAW your wistful article on what is called a “life class” by Emma Goldman, (The naked truth, Review, May 5).

I have been attending such a (not so thrilling) “adventure in art” in Soho – in fact in line with Emma Goldman’s approach to the pose – at the Yoga Centre in Brewer Street.

This “art experience” is run by a radical collective called Figuration. It campaigns for queer liberation and revolution. (You can see it on the web).

There is nothing exotic or erotic about drawing someone in the nude. The fatal two hours are draining for model and artist alike.

The difficult, hard, work involved may indeed feel deadly. Emma Goldman describes a sense of ennui that is all too usual in the formal studio.

What we need is street art like dynamite. We have to blow up the restrictive, cruel, cages of the posh gallery and the mercenary art market.

So, if not very effectively, I have been making illustrations of the alleys and shops of Soho, in all their neon-lit, lovely-looking, tinpot weirdness.

ZEKRIA IBRAHIMI
Address supplied, W12