Sex — Madonna, photographs by Steven Meisel, design by Fabien Baron — First Edition, 1992

The iconic erotica book of the 1990s — aluminium-bound, hyper-staged, and instantly sold out. Sex is a fetish object in itself: glossy, cold to the touch, and infamous by design. Shot by Steven Meisel, art directed by Fabien Baron, and performed by Madonna at her most untouchable, this book is a cultural capsule of 1992: provocative, overproduced, and perfectly timed to mirror the rise of postmodern celebrity and mass-market provocation.

Wrapped in a spiral-bound aluminium shell and shrink-wrapped in Mylar, Sex presents a saturated theatre of desire, layered with kink, irony, and the precise control of image. Its pages — featuring Naomi Campbell, Vanilla Ice, Isabella Rossellini and more — move between domination and self-performance, fantasy and farce, with Madonna as director, object, and gaze. This first edition includes the rare 8-page comic insert, a pulp gesture underscoring the book’s choreography of high and low culture. For Darwin, Sex is more than scandal — it’s a keystone in the visual history of celebrity control and erotic representation.

Technical Sheet
Title: Sex
Artist / Author / Maker: Madonna, photographs by Steven Meisel, design by Fabien Baron
Date: 1992
Technique / Medium: Aluminium ring-bound photobook with color offset printing and comic insert
Edition: First edition, numbered (No. 0703780)
Dimensions: 35 × 28 cm; 122 pages + 8-page comic
Condition: As new — original aluminium cover, pages clean, comic present
Origin / Provenance: Martin Secker & Warburg (UK/USA edition)
Shipping: Registered, secure shipping due to format and rarity