Nude and Naked
a photography exhibition at the Brill Gallery, Studio 109, Eclipse Mill, 243 Union St., North Adams, MA 01247-0786, 800.294.2811 p/f, 845.661.3593 cell, email: info@brillgallery109.com
OPEN THROUGH DEC. 31, 2008
All works are for sale. All works discussed here can be seen on the Brill Gallery web site: click here.
One of the most absorbing and challenging exhibitions in the Northern Berkshires this year has been Nude & Naked at the Brill Gallery in the Eclipse Mill in North Adams. Densely hung in a dynamic arrangement, the prints, of many different sizes, ranging from Roy Volkmann’s enormous “Seraph” (41 x 45 in.) to Lucien Clergue’s intimate abstractions, which at 8 x 10 in. seem like miniatures, do more than present a series of beautiful or provocative examples of this classic genre, it poses an extended visual argument about how the ten photographers in the exhibition see the nude and about how we see it, that is, anyone who makes the decision to enter the Brill Gallery and spend an hour or so with these images. (Looking at oneself in the mirror in another thing altogether). Some are beautiful; some are ugly. I have my own ideas about which are which, but I doubt many people would agree with me. Every visitor will have his or her own opinion, and this is most definitely a show to arouse discussion—which is the best kind, in my opinion. I was surprised, moreover, to learn that some people, even artists, have come in and found the exhibition so disturbing that they left after only a few minutes of discomfort. Mr. Brill emphasizes that the exhibition is not for everyone.
At some point gallery-goers, most likely the older ones, learned that the nude is the highest expression in the visual arts, bridging the classical past with the most objective, dispassionate ocular study of the human body: skin, flesh, and frame. It is the fruit of years of rigorous study in the academy, and the endless sketching of casts and human models. The heroes of medicine and art join forces as outlaw sketchers of cadavers. The model holds an uncomfortable pose for as long as he or she can stand it for their pittance, and the artist’s eye remains cool and disengaged. Figure drawing today is taught as a process of abstract construction based on the proportional measurement of an observed model. The nude becomes a frigid monument to the scientific mentality which conquered the material world in the fifteenth century Florence.
The even more studious German, Albrecht Dürer, took it further through the mathematics of proportion and the establishment of a range of body types. This is the mentality that created capitalism, forged the inductive method, and conquered the New World…and hands off! The nude is an ideal. At the very least it is the purest of genres in art.
However, in addition to inspiring exaltation in the viewer through the contemplation of divine proportion as revealed by the artist, that is, a Raphael or a Michelangelo, it aroused prurience as well. Rather than undertake the complex, perhaps impossible task of tracing its origins, it is best simply to remember that Michelangelo’s David acquired his fig leaf and the nude figures in his Last Judgment their breeches. To go a ways further, Giulio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings of sixteen sexual positions were cut into tiny, barely recognizable scraps—a monument to the primal human reluctance to go all the way in destroying pleasures which are not entirely virtuous. Now the nude was in fact only incidental in these wicked prints, an artifact of western sexual customs, nothing more. In them, as far as we can see, the nude body was not in itself the prime subject, but the activities in which it was engaged. And really, we these illustrated sonnets intended as pornography, or were they in fact educational materials? We may never know, but it helps to compare Cardinal Bibbiena’s stufetta and other pagan quarters of the Vatican, which were clearly not educational, but rather intended to show off the Cardinal’s learning and to create a certain atmosphere for his bath times. The publication may have been created simply to make people laugh—nothing more than a bit of locker-room humor for Roman prelates as they divested themselves after Mass. The proportion and aesthetic of the human body, as far as one can make out, are entirely classical, as a mannerist would conceive it. By contrast elements of clothing are essential to the effect of nineteenth and twentieth century pornography.
The subversive gesture has been a commonplace in contemporary art and art education for some time now. The centrality of concept, also a central subject in art education, provides a safe haven for this topos, which might be invoked through the depiction of an ugly subject, an extreme political statement, or an undermining of the traditional preconceptions of art through elements considered antithetical to it, for example, commercial styles or content, the ugly once again, or pornography. In this way you will occasionally find some of the gestures or themes of pornography introduced into fine art nude photography, and the Brill Gallery exhibition is no exception. More often than not, this art-negating iconography reverses itself in suggestive poses that are not at all sexy, either in intent, either through ugliness or intellectualization, or in effect.
In these terms eroticism is essentially the opposite of pornography, since it is intended to arouse, often subtly or indirectly, the desire of a real sexual encounter. It is very much a part of the modern nude. Roy Volkmann has in fact said that he likes to introduce a very small element of it in his work. In “Seraph” this creates a tension with the chasteness converyed by the athleticism and dispassionate face of the model. Clergue’s nudes are intensely erotic, but formalistic as well. We lose ourselves in the pure contour, surface, and chiaroscuro of the images as much as in their erotic beauty.
For some time now, the best theological, legal, and aesthetic minds have pondered questions like these and still haven’t succeeded in sewing it all up ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Other art historians are far more expert than I am on this question. I merely wish to demonstrate why Ralph Brill found it necessary to address these issues in Nude & Naked, when many of us, myself included, are happy simply to have a lively selection of photographs to look at.
Mr. Brill explains his argument in this way:
I have been planning this Exhibit for more than a year. It is a celebration of the Human Body in all its sizes and shapes as has been done for thousands of years though through photography and Western sensibilities. NUDE & NAKED is very timely as in the past few weeks two major events occurred: (1) As part of Starbucks’ efforts to reinvigorate its brand it brought back its old logo on its coffee cups which had a bare-breasted mermaid with her tails apart. Various Christian groups called for a Starbucks boycott as they read the naked seafaring siren as a prostitute with her legs spread apart. Starbucks’ reaction to this threat was to stop printing the new design. This is a setback. (2) Curiously, on the other hand, the Catholic Church should be praised as it has officially approved that the Virgin Mary may now be depicted bare-breasted. This has taken more than 500 years to happen. The original Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel was decorated with many nudes and maybe in time those will be revealed as well. Whereas many of the world’s religions are demanding that less flesh be exposed – the Vatican is being very modern. By the way, in 1916 the U.S. Quarter Dollar had a bare-breasted Lady Liberty on one side. The outcry was so enormous that the next version had Lady Liberty covered up. Maybe the U.S. will follow the Vatican’s example and reissue the topless Lady Liberty?
It is, of course, a waste of time to rehearse the aforementioned theological, legal, and aesthetic points with the idiots who object to the Starbucks mermaid, which, as Mr. Brill described it, is a prime case of pornography being in eye of the beholder. It would be interesting to try out a few inkblots on these worthy Christians.
Just as photographic visualization is different from the arts founded on drawing, no matter how much the photographer may seek to emulate them, the act of posing and making the image is different in a fundamental way. Instead of concentrating on holding a pose for a length period of time for a draftsman, the model is free to move about, holding a pose for much shorter periods, which in turn enables poses which were previously impossible. For Edward Weston, Charis was free to move her limbs and torso until he found an interesting disposition. This, and the very particular relationship between them gave Charis a significant role in the creative process. Her memoir of her life with Edward and the recent film by Ian McCluskey, without an explicit statement on Charis’ part, suggested to me that she was a co-creator in the famous nudes. However, Kate Hagerman, who came to the same conclusion as I, in her essay about her meeting with Charis says that she explicitly denied this. Kate, on the other hand, acted as more of a co-creator in her work with Leonard Freed, which was different in other ways as well, notably in the absence of a romantic relationship.
In this exhibition, however, there is a striking offshoot of the Weston situation in the work of Leonard Freed and Kate Hagerman. They met by chance while she and some friends were swimming around Garrison, New York, where Freed lived, in 2001. He photographed them at the time, but a project did not emerge until some months later. Kate Hagerman, who is not a professional model, took a keen interest in the idea of posing for nudes, because she had been a student of yoga since she was fifteen and had a strong awareness of the significance of the body in our life and consciousness. When she and Freed decided to pursue a project together, she was determined to take an active role, reserving for herself the decision when and where to pose the photographs, as they made a road trip across the United States. Freed’s “Kate at Golden Gate View” captures the spirit of their collaborative road photography.
Through this Kate became absorbed with the experience of working with a photographer in this way, and she decided to get in touch with Charis Wilson to discuss her life and work with Edward Weston. The next step was the purchase of a Leica M6. Kate now photographs herself in Freed’s chosen medium, 35 mm black and white—for her a form of meditation. Ralph Brill, who presented a comprehensive exhibition of Leonard Freed’s work, which opened shortly after the photographer’s death, now gives us the opportunity to view the two bodies of work together. This is only one part—an especially fascinating one, it must be admitted—of the many unusual juxtapositions Brill has found in the ten photographers whose work he has gather for this show: Lucien Clergue, Greg Miller, Carl Austin Hyatt, Timothy Nazzaro, Michel Comte, Roy Volkmann, Leonard Nimoy, Eve Sonneman, in addition to Hagerman and Freed.
Of these Volkmann and Comte are famous through their work for glossy magazines like Vogue, Stern, and Grazia. Leonard Nimoy is famous for other reasons, but in fact he was a fully trained professional photographer before he became an actor. Lucien Clergue is the most distinguished of all. He began his career in the early 1950s with the encouragement of Pablo Picasso. There are also impressive young photographers in Nazzaro, Miller, and Hagerman. Carl Austin Hyatt, a former MacDowell Colony Fellow, and Eve Sonneman are mature fine art workers.
Brill has mixed the individual photographers’ prints together, encouraging us to rely on our eyes. On entering the gallery, one is struck by two large color prints. One is Michel Comte’s bare-breasted portrait of the pop singer and supermodel Karen Elson, leaning with a weary look and heavy makeup against the sickly green headboard of a bed with clashing blue and green sheets and pattern red fabric on the wall behind. The other is a Roy Volkmann’s monumental “Seraph,” depicting a lean, muscular dancer sprung into the air and frozen by his strobes. These are hung with Leonard Freed’s small, seemingly artless scenes of nude bathers on Mykonos in 1975 and a view from his travels with Kate at Burning Man. On an opposite wall, Leonard Nimoy’s “Matisse Dancers” shows his impeccable skill at lighting and composition. This is from Nimoy’s Full Body Project, which began with the sphinx-like figure hanging nearby. These are among the more sensual of the nudes in the show, however much they are unlike the physical type we are used to regarding as beautiful or appealing, I believe, because of a sensuality which emanates from the subjects themselves, since Nimoy captured them in situations in which, as in this dancing scene, they are enjoying being in their bodies.
Personally, I was especially drawn to the more abstract nudes, like Carl Austin Hyatt’s “N-71,” or any one of Clergue’s shadowy figures. The group of “N-71,” Clergue’s “Italian Nudes,” and Kate Hagerman’s “Self Portrait” was especially effective. By contemplating them at length and studying the subtle correspondences among them, you will understand the sensibility and the logic behind Brill’s selection. The photographs stand out in groups like that one or reflecting other characteristics, like Nazzaro’s “Image 2,” Hyatt’s “N-144,” and Clergue’s “Nudes in Prayer.”
Individual images stand out as well, for example Leonard Freed’s “Shower,” with its sweeping asymmetries and Clergue’s “Nu de la Mer” of an ample-breasted young woman with sand and sea water cupped between her thighs. Both stand out for their compositional rigor. In “Shower,” divided in the center by a plastic shower curtain clamped behind a hand-grip, one towel falls in toga-like folds, and the other is swept to the side in a flatter, more haphazard fashion.
In “Nu de la Mer” both the sand, which is covered by a film of viscous sea water and woman’s body, nestled in a depression of sand and water, are sensually equivalent. The saline pool extending from over her mons veneris almost to her knees is a reminder in natural imagery that, according to ancient popular etymology, Aphrodite was born of sea-foam (=ἀφρός). Clergue here reveals himself as one of the most poetic of photographers.
Classical associations also appear in Kate Hagerman’s “Self I,” in which, as if she were heroicaly striding forward, she reveals herself as cross between a female Aristogeiton, arm raised, and an undraped, wingless Nike of Paionios.
Repeated visits will unlock a wealth of further associations and insights. Ralph Brill says that his original inspiration came from the comprehensive exhibition of 19th and early 20th century photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Master Photographs from the Gilman Collection: A Landmark Acquisition, but his principles of selection were quite different, since he wisely concentrated on the work of ten photographers, all of whom, except Freed, tare living. Any visitor will find a name or two he would like to have seen included, but It is best to stay within the confines of Brill’s tight selection and to explore it in depth. You will surely come out with a deepened understanding of our complex, ambivalent modern way of relating to this classic subject, which embodies the essence of the classic in art.
But now for something entirely anti-classical…
