The Abject Body - who has the power in this image?

In 1989 Robert Mapplethorpe’s his solo exhibition tour “The Perfect Moment” which he created in the latter years of his life shocked and angered the art world. The images contained homoerotic and sadomasochistic self portraits of Mapplethorpe that were deemed offensive and resulted in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington pulling out of hosting the exhibition in its galleries. Whilst some art institutions chose to display the collection, the Contemporary Arts Centre were charged with obscenity and although found not guilty, raised the questions about how far an artist can push the boundaries of acceptance from the viewer as seen below (Mapplethorpe died from complications arising from AIDS in 1989.)

Mapplethorpe, Self-Portrait with Bullwhip, 1978.

http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/topics/censorship/photo.html

The pioneer of the psychological idea of Abjection was Julia Kristeva who identified in part that “The abject confronts us, on the one hand, with those fragile states where man strays on the territories of animal. Thus by way of abjection, primitive societies have marked out a precise are of their culture in order to remove it from the threatening world of animals or animalism as representatives of sex and murder”

It is clear, with this idea in mind, how images such as the one above may elicit negative reaction during a time when the American public was struggling to deal with the effects of the AIDS epidemic and the idea of the ‘gay plague’; the work divided opinion between the fearful and the culturally tolerant.

The image itself shows a sense of great composition and contrast between the white sheet covering the chair and the black leather whip, boots and belt. I find even myself thinking “if it were not for the bullwhip...” but would my mind follow the same line of the composition? Also, would the image have the same impact? Whilst looking at the image you are confronted with the idea of servant and master, something Mapplethorpe has portrayed in equal measure.

Joel-Peter Witkin

Ars Moriendi 2007

http://www.edelmangallery.com/witkin54.html

Venus and Cupid with a partridge, Titian c.1500

 

http://www.artchive.com/viewer/z.html

This idea can also be seen later much later in the work of Joel-Peter Witkin. The image Ars Moriendi (2007) show a woman reclining nonchalantly on a velvet throw, the image appears to be based on Titian's Venus and cupid with an organist(c.1548-9) with the putrefied head symbolizing cupid. Maybe the photographer is making a statement about the mythological subjects he has appropriated; cupid is dead...desire is dead. He also may be eluding to the prosperity of the independent female figure - notice the mirror and the unsightly heads in the foreground (possibly the heads of adonis who abandoned her)

Diane Arbus and the New

Diane Arbus was a photographer who was known for photographing people on the fringe of society; people who are slightly removed from what could be deemed “acceptable” and makes them so.

Take this image as an example; his hair in curlers, eyebrows plucked, nails done and make-up in process could be just another woman in the act of getting ready for the day if it were not for the overtly masculine nose and jaw line.

It is alledged that somebody spat on this image during its exhibition in 1967 which again shows the almost physical aversion to the ‘other’.

Diane Arbus, A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966

http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/dbcourses/search.cgi?simplesearch=Diane+Arbus&root=items&search=simple&x=21&y=15

                

Anonymous 60 year old phone sex operator, Phonesex Series, Phillip Toledano. Circa 2008

www.mrtoledano.com

A much more recent example of this fringe society is this image of an old woman who, although not fully exposed, pushes the boundary of what is considered descent.

What is similar about the idea is that the identity of the 2 sitters is that they both participate in something that we know exists but only as something ‘other’

Both photographers confront us.

 Tattooed man at a carnival, Diane Arbus circa 197

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4708994

An example by Arbus of a man at a carnival who could have very well been part of a freak show.

Rick Genest and Andre Pijic for Auslander by Marcelo Krisilcic

Rick Genest a man with a full body tattoo of decomposing flesh and exposed brain alongside androgynous model Andre Pijic who frequently models female clothing for major fashion houses.

IANA, Phillip Toledano

       

ALLANAH, Phillip Toledano          

 

Taken from the series “A new kind of beauty” Toledano photographs people who have undergone extreme surgery to become physically what they are psychologically. We recognise the body parts of a woman but some cannot quite acknowledge the idea of the complete feminine and instead choose to define it by ‘gender identity disorder’. However, the images are taken in what appears to be celebration of the ‘other’ highlighting the new kind of beauty in a classical portrait style rather than an anthropological sense, thus highlighting the idea that photographs of the abject body are important in terms of allowing us  to find a way to accept the unknown.