Oh, I also have a lot of thoughts about this. A thread. #MeToo https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> https://twitter.com/andizeisler/status/1314685637195300864">https://twitter.com/andizeisl...
Let’s start by stating the (what should be) obvious, that this public work probably isn’t a sculpture for a male artist to make. Full stop. #MeToo https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt="">
Now let’s also get some historical context. This work, by a male artist, is referential to a classical sculpture…by a male artist (Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa).
I mean, if we’re going to go this route with a public work (again, we shouldn’t), it& #39;d surely be better to hang a gigantic print of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes (look - a woman artist making great works, even in the time of Cellini!) https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists-4201/">https://www.artnews.com/art-news/...
The mythology of Medusa - a monstrous Gorgon, with venomous snakes for hair - was arguably most influentially crafted by Ovid. It has been mythologized/fetishized to death for centuries as a symbol of female rage in the works of Beardsley, Cellini, Klee, Picasso, Rodin....
Feminist theorists (see: Hélène Cixous) argue that men& #39;s retelling of Medusa narrative is driven by fear of women’s agency. This sculpture just doesn& #39;t do anything to challenge that. If anything, it reinforces a false #MeToo https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> narrative about rage/revenge —vs. power/justice.
But! This sculpture inverts the mythology, you say! Ok. Let’s talk about the sculpture itself. Well, art from outside a white Western male viewpoint might better ‘invert the mythology.’ #MeToo https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> #malegaze
An artist today doesn’t have the imagination to conceptualize inverted power dynamics re. sexual violence w/o depicting a nude (idealized) woman? Without sexualizing assault? Slim, hairless, oddly realistic but….lacking anatomical details? (even Cellini’s Perseus had genitals..)
Obviously nudity/sexuality can be used in art on these topics. See: Judy Chicago or Suzanne Lacy or Ana Mendieta’s work in the 70s, or Marina Abramovic, Kara Walker, Naima Ramos Chapman & Janiva Ellis today (particularly re. violence & agency for WOC). https://www.artforum.com/print/201801/fully-loaded-power-and-sexual-violence-73188">https://www.artforum.com/print/201...
There’s a real, substantive & importance difference between work being made by a white male artist vs. any artist who has engaged critically with these themes & appreciates the unique way in which women/women’s bodies have been sexualized and throughout (art) history.
So I suppose the piece is unintentionally successful—in a meta-way—as “commentary on the #MeToo https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> movement” in that it showcases how society/culture has failed to engage with #MeToo https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt="">. It& #39;s not about one rageful woman enacting revenge—it is about voice, justice & accountability, no?
In conclusion, for f**** sake.
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