Five hundred years also separates these two works. "Buster Keaton" by Jeff Koons may not be going anywhere, but 15th century Germans pulled Jesus through their Palm Sunday processions before the Church banned movable sculptures as works of the devil.
Imagine how those post-Reformation fathers would have reacted to Goshka Macuga's "To the Son of a Man Who Ate the Scroll"!
I used to think that Greek and Romans preferred their statues monochromatic. Not so. Hermes likely was painted before "Enlightenment" curators whitewashed the messenger of the gods to reflect contemporary taste for purity in art.
In the mood for a mind fuck? Hiram Powers used a Native American model to personify California for this mid-19th century work but his choice of pure white marble--influenced by his residence in Florence where he was surrounded by bleached classical sculpture--erased her ethnicity!
Flesh-colored paint on John De Andrea's brushes shows him doing just the opposite in a self-portrait that demonstrates his commitment to realism over the male gaze.
Blood may be an inherently more colorful medium than plaster, but it cost Marc Quinn ten pints of his own and constant refrigeration to produce this macabre self-portrait.
The curators give people of color their due in the exhibit. Unfortunately, their representation in Western art begins later than much of the rest.
"Bernice" by John Ahearn.
"Shorty Working in the C&R Statuary Corp."and "Raul with Bust of Ruth Fernandez," both by Rigoberto Torres.
"Rubber Soul, Monument of Aspiration" by Mary Sibande.
Do modern artists idealize nudity less?
"The Whistlers" by Tip Tolan.
"Human Statue" by Frank Benson.
"Mother" by Bharti Kher.
In a case of the lady doth protest too much, the patriarchal Church fretted about the eroticism implicit in a lot of male religious iconography. Are St. Sebastian's arrows tipped with pain or pleasure?
Art conducts sexual current in both directions. Is this cute young man going for a swim in his underwear? No, in Reza Aramesh's "Action 105," he's a Palestinian about to be strip-searched by an Israeli at gunpoint.
Several artists address dying and death.
"Old Woman in Bed" by Ron Mueck.
JFK served as the model for Maurizio Cattelan's provocative "Now."
It looks as if Louise Bourgeois' "Three Horizontals" belong in a morgue.
Duane Hanson dissects American society in a couple of works that depict a house painter and a housewife.
The exhibit's "aha quotient" diminishes as it progresses but the works are arresting even standing (or sitting) alone.
"The Experiment" by Elmgreen & Dragset.
"Actors" by Isa Genzken
"La Demi-Poupee" by Hans Bellmer.
"Sex Paralysappeal" by Wilhelm Freddie.
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