At the beginning of the semester I took a trip into DC to visit the Hirschhorn museum of modern art. There was an exhibit on the lower most level that focused on strange body images and displayed them in a variety of mediums. Some of the artists selected used sculpture, many more paintings. One strange body image was created by Andy Warhol and painted onto velvet. Others were depictions of women and all their curvatures. Two sculptures were of disembodied legs.
Particularly of interest was a larger than life sculpture of a naked man sitting in a corner of the exhibit curled into the fetal position. Created by Ron Mueck, the big man portrayed so many emotions in just one facial expression. Discomfort, sadness, and a slight resignation were all depicted on his fleshy wax face.
Also of interest was a collection of three photographs that were done by one artist and showed her parents and her as a child, but if you looked closely it could be seen that each person was a mask on the artist herself. Each mask was almost perfectly done so that there was no division between the imposed face and the face of the person underneath.
Matthew Barney had a collection of photographs of some of his costumes from his film on display and there were some stand-alone pieces that required more thought that viewing. Overall it expanded the idea of “strange bodies”.
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