Date: Fri 23-Jul-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Aldrich-nude-Philbrick-Finley

Full Text:

Aldrich Exhibit Exposes Attitudes About The Nude In Art

(with photo & programs sidebar)

BY SHANNON HICKS

RIDGEFIELD -- Harry Philbrick has it right: What, indeed, is it about the

human body that makes so many people uncomfortable?

Mr Philbrick is the director of the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and was

the chief curator of the museum's 1999 major summer exhibition, "The Nude in

Contemporary Art." The show presents works by 45 artists, representing three

continents, and will remain on view until September 12. Aldrich assistant

director Richard Klein and assistant curator Jessica Hough were the

exhibition's additional curators.

For his essay in the exhibition catalogue, Mr Philbrick wrote, among other

good points, "...despite the cascading ascendance of various new media... old

fashioned art still packs a potent punch. People are afraid that a still

picture, hanging on the wall of a museum, might be a threat."

Elsewhere in his essay, he went on to say, "Why are we so uncomfortable in our

own skin, or at least in depictions of our own skin?... Whatever it might have

symbolized at any given time, the nude has now fallen into a strange limbo,

not banned outright, but not easily accepted as a legitimate icon for artistic

use."

"The Nude in Contemporary Art" packs a punch only in that it has filled the

entire museum with artworks -- in nearly every art form imaginable --

depicting exactly what the title indicates. Visitors to the museum are in for

no surprises when they visit a venue presenting a title like "The Nude in

Contemporary Art;" yet there was resistance just last year when a major museum

like the Whitney Museum of American Art decided to create a similarly-themed

show.

The Aldrich show is a strong, eye-opening, enjoyable look at the human body at

its best and worst. Works offer visitors a look at the body at every age

level, male and female, realistic and exaggerated. It is a celebration of the

human form, and a challenge for visitors to look at something that every one

of us has in our own unique configuration.

It is a very exciting show. "The Nude in Contemporary Art" offers a look at

what every man and woman comes into the world with: His or her own body,

unclothed.

"There is no subject that has the same kind of longevity as the nude," said

the painter William Beckman, who has a large painting in the show. Mr Beckman

gave a lecture at the Aldrich during the opening weeks of the exhibition's

run, in June. Artists have been depicting nudes in art, using every possible

material, he pointed out, for over 26,000 years.

"Everyone can relate to the nude figure," Mr Beckman said. "We're talking

nearly 30,000 years of reinterpretation here."

In curating the show, the Aldrich staff, in staying with its mission and name,

chose works of emerging and influential contemporary artists. While the

subject matter is all similar, the artists have a wide range of backgrounds,

training, career levels and experience, said co-curator Jessica Hough.

"Some of these artists are known, and others are not known, for doing nudes,"

Ms Hough said. "The nude can actually be a very difficult form, but it is

found in most art training at one point or another," she continued.

Mr Beckman's idea of reinterpretation not only by different generations but

also in different forms rings true when visitors walk through the show and

encounter works that range from chromogenic prints, graphite on paper and oil

on canvas to etchings, videos and even sculptures from dirt. Yes, dirt -- see

James Croak's "Man and Woman."

Mr Beckman congratulated the Aldrich last month for "doing something even the

Met wouldn't do. The Met does not deal with frontal male nudity."

The Met apparently will not deal with it, nor will the Whitney. In July 1998,

the New York City museum scrapped its plans for a similar show it was

preparing, to be called "The Great American Nude," which was to have opened

last December.

The current Aldrich show is similar in its approach to presenting the human as

a nude, but is not the same show that would have been on view at the Whitney.

The show in Ridgefield was curated by the Aldrich staff. It was not simply put

together using plans from Whitney materials.

The images are not always pretty, nor even easy to look at. Most of the models

in the works in "The Nude in Contemporary Art" are so-called "everyday"

people, with the normal bumps and bulges that come with not being a

supermodel. The idea that they will be looking, in some cases, at people who

could be themselves looking back at them from a mirror may terrorize some

viewers. Nudity may frighten some people, but really it is just a look at Man

at his most honest.

Meg Cranston's C-print is a good starting point. The woman presented in the

image is the so-called "Average American." From there, works run the gamut in

presenting young and old, healthy and heavy body types.

Tina Barney's "Nude #1045" offers a look into one apartment kitchen, where

three nude models are either walking, reaching for something or just looking

at the camera. Peter Krashes' "Untitled Series #3" and "Untitled Series #1,"

both oils on linen, while not detailed, also hint at people with very

confident bodies.

Conversely, Sherry Camhy's life-size "Richard, the Golem," a pencil on paper,

presents its viewer with a look at a heavyset but proud -- almost defiant --

man. "Untitled" by Jenny Saville is not only of a very large woman, but the

work itself is a much-larger-than-life 112 inches high by 66 inches wide.

One of the most difficult images for museum visitors to view could very well

be Manabu Yamanaka's "Gyahtei #5." Not many people like to confront death, or

even think about what growing old does to the human body. Mr Yamanaka's black

and white photograph (1995, 68 by 31« inches) asks viewers to look at a very

old woman lying on her side, literally wrinkles and all.

In stark contrast to the youthful energy seen in most of the works in the

show, the two works by Yamanaka, says Ms Hough, "show women probably moments,

or just years, away from their ultimate destiny.

"What's interesting is that it shows us, in one of the very few times any of

us will see this in our lives, exactly what happens to our bodies when we grow

old. Most people don't want to think about this, and we certainly don't know

about it because when you get older, you tend to keep everything covered all

the time."

In addition to the artists mentioned above, the exhibition also includes work

by Laura Aguilar, Lisa Bartolozzi, Brett Bigbee, Paul Cadmus, David Carbone,

Harriet Casdin-Silver, Joe Cavallaro, Eteri Chkadua, Chuck Close, John

Coplans, Renee Cox, John Currin, Steven DiGiovanni, Jeanne Dunning, Lucian

Freud, Philip Grausman, Chris Habib, Ane Harris, Jacqueline Hayden, Kinke

Kooi, Daniel Ladd, Jacob Lawrence, Harriet Leibowitz, Michael Leonard, Melanie

Manchot, Denise Marika, John O'Reilly, Hanneline Rogeberg, Karin Sander, Jenny

Saville, Andres Serrano, Robert Stivers, Annelies Strba, Jock Sturges, Robert

Taplin, Spencer Tunick, Manabu Yamanaka and Lisa Yuskavage.

Bringing The Nude To Ridgefield

"The Nude in Contemporary Art" was born out of a series of conversations

between Harry Philbrick and the performance artist Karen Finley.

Ms Finley's name may be familiar to those who are in or watch the art world

fairly closely. Ms Finley has made history during the past ten years when she

received, but then had revoked, a grant from the NEA. Ms Finley sued for

reinstatement and received a ruling in her favor in 1992.

In a stunning turn of events, however, the NEA then appealed that ruling and

the 9th Court of Appeals overturned the reinstatement by the lower court.

Then, with Congress having already voted in the early Nineties to "limit

federal art grants according to general standards of decency," the Supreme

Court easily rolled over a second appeal from Ms Finley in 1998, saying the

Federal government had the right to "withhold federal grants from work it

disqualifies for being overtly controversial."

An installation by Karen Finley called "Go Figure" was to be included in the

show that was being planned at the Whitney, and was then canceled. In fact,

according to Mr Philbrick the Whitney event had grown from a simple display of

"Go Figure" into what was to have been a much larger exhibition. The Whitney

show was canceled just a few days after the monumental Supreme Court decision

was announced.

Mr Philbrick contacted Ms Finley shortly after last year's Supreme Court

decision and the subsequent Whitney cancellation, asking her to consider

mounting her installation at the Aldrich. (The museum already owns a copy of

Ms Finley's sculpture, "Black Sheep," a large rock with a slate front

inscribed with a poem by the artist, in its sculpture garden.)

"The Nude in Contemporary Art" was only in its planning stages at that point;

Mr Philbrick had not yet even received approval from the museum's exhibition

committee. But shortly after that the idea was approved, the curatorial

process began and the show quickly fell into place.

Ms Finley's "Go Figure" is an on-site installation which has turned one

gallery of the museum into a life drawing class. Every day the museum is open

during the run of the show, a live model will be available for students and

visitors to draw (museum visitors under the age of 18 must have a signed

parental waiver).

The idea is intriguing -- it takes the nude as art from a piece of work

hanging on a wall or presented as a statue and brings nudity as art to life --

and possibly controversial. Live nude people in a museum setting?

What is absurd to curators is the idea that something so traditional in nearly

every artist's training at one time or another can be considered a political

hotwire once it is taken out of the classroom setting and placed in a museum.

There is a pun on the title of Ms Finley's installation. "The same thing that

every traditional art class in America teaches, life drawing," Mr Philbrick

points out in his catalogue essay, "is controversial if it is done in a

contemporary art museum. Go figure ."

"Go Figure" was first presented in 1997 in an exhibition called "Uncommon

Sense," at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. While curators at

the Aldrich were waiting to see what, if any, ramifications Ms Finley's

installation might have locally, museum curators in California said the

installation was quite popular two years ago.

"Karen Finley's installation was actually one of the most popular attractions

of that show," Sylvia Hohri, the Museum of Contemporary Art's director of

marketing and public relations, recalled this week on the phone from Los

Angeles. "We didn't really have any negative response.

"I think because of the way it was installed -- there wasn't a naked woman

standing there, confronting you -- people weren't upset with the installation.

Instead people were given the option of participating [in a separate gallery

space] if they wanted to," Ms Hohri continued. "It was never a problem."

The Aldrich show has Ms Finley's "Go Figure" in one of its third floor gallery

spaces.

Visitors have the option of entering the classroom area, which is being

constantly monitored by a teacher, or moving on to look at the remainder of

the exhibition. An explanation of what is going on inside the classroom is

clearly presented on the outer wall of the classroom/gallery space.

Karen Finley was in Ridgefield to conduct a preliminary life drawing class on

June 5. All subsequent life drawing classes have been coordinated with

Silvermine Guild Arts Center of New Canaan, Wooster Community Art Center of

Danbury, and Ridgefield Guild of Artists.

Newsprint pads and charcoal will be available for museum visitors through the

run of the show, and participants are invited to keep their creations or add

them to a collection of resultant drawings being hung in the "Go Figure"

gallery space.

"One of the most appealing things about that installation was that there were

all types of models," Ms Hohri added. "There were all different shapes,

colors, men and women... there was a real variety presented." The Aldrich

Museum has carried that same theme into its own show this summer.

In 1965, Kenneth Clark devoted an entire chapter in his book The Nude: A Study

in Ideal Form to discussing the difference between "naked" and "nude."

According to a brochure published by the Aldrich in conjunction with the

current exhibition, Mr Clark suggested naked "is to be deprived of clothes,

implying embarrassment. Nude , however, has no uncomfortable overtone and

implies a balanced, prosperous, confident body."

The summer exhibition at the Aldrich does not try to hide anything. Even from

its title, visitors to 258 Main Street should have an indication of what they

are in for when they enter the front doors of the museum. "The Nude in

Contemporary Art" does not try to hide anything either in its name nor

presentation.

"There was some concern when this show was first announced," Jessica Hough

said. "But today, you see the nude everywhere. This really is the perennial

art subject."