Today on disturbing and bizarre...

[hafital]

Solid Gold Moss Statue Revealed.

This has been in the UK news all week (what can I say, I'm starving for stimuli at work, so I troll bbc.com) and I just CANNOT get over it.

A 50kg solid gold statue of model Kate Moss has been unveiled at the British Museum, in London.

'Ideal beauty'

Described by the museum as an "Aphrodite of our times", it sits in the Museum's Nereid Gallery, alongside its statues of famous Greek beauties.

Okay, leaving off what some people's opinions of female beauty equate to, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Is that really a modern statue of Aphrodite?? All I can see is her crotch. I mean, okay, all right, put her in a yoga position, FINE, whatever (although why? Is yoga particularly indicitive of female beauty??), but jeezus why not bridge at least, or heck, even bow pose. One of the Warrior poses!

Comments

[pocketmouse]

o_0

...it's like she's giving birth to herself.

It kinda makes me think of that statue of Britney Spears giving birth.

[ariestess]

A. don't get the pose outside of being too crotch-oriented.

B. Since when is Kate Moss the feminine ideal? Wasn't she usurped about 4 or 5 years ago?

[hafital.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she's so 5 years ago. :D I thought the same thing. I was like, Kate Moss really? REALLY? but whatever. I think it's an ugly statue. Kate's pretty but that statue is ass (pun intended. hahah).

[ariestess]

Yeah, that's just ass-ugly... That goes as far as fugly...

[klia.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of Victoria Wood's song "Had It Up To Here" from The Secret Policeman's Other Ball, which said men want women who are "a combination of Olga Korbut, Raquel Welch and Rin Tin Tin." Apparently, whoever commissioned that sculpture agreed.

If I were KM, I wouldn't be feeling flattered or happy with the end result, that's for damn sure. Way too crotchitorial. Ick.

a combination of Olga Korbut, Raquel Welch and Rin Tin Tin

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's literal! In a pose like that, she can lick her own ass, just like the dog!

Re: a combination of Olga Korbut, Raquel Welch and Rin Tin Tin

[klia.livejournal.com]

I know. It's just... ick, ick, ick.

[unovis-lj.livejournal.com]

At the British Museum?
That's awful.

ETA: Oh, I see. It's not as horrible, explained by the artist in the article. The "Aphrodite of our times" is nonsense. I didn't realize the BM collected contemporary art, either. Big mistake.

[hafital.livejournal.com]

I wonder what his other "Alison Lapper Pregnant" statue looks like. And from lower down in the article: Meanwhile, The National Portrait Gallery has launched a public appeal to raise £200,000 for Marc Quinn's self-portrait head cast made from frozen blood.

...

I mean, I admittedly am not up on the art world, particularly the modern art world, but that seems extreme.

[unovis-lj.livejournal.com]

I can understand Quinn's work, but I don't really enjoy looking at most of it. I don't like most of the work of the "Young British Artists" school. I admire what he did with the Alison Lapper sculpture, relevant to her life and her own work, more than the Kate Moss one (info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Lapper)

The pose for the Kate Moss one reminds me a little of some of Rodin's sketches when he was working on the Gates of Hell -- or some of the maquettes, like Iris. It's interesting to see her body, usually displayed to show her thinness and height and as an animated clothes hanger, knotted up like that in a ball. She's not even nude--she's still wearing minimal, undistinguished clothing as part of her body. It's not as complimentary as classical drapery, but it almost serves the same function.

There's a context for the blood sculptures, among other artists working with biological material, personal material, ephemeral material, and media that's a bit insane. The blood is his own.

Like I said, not really to my taste.

ETA: and -- just looking at this without reading or knowing much about the artist -- the pose on second look really is interesting, given that the title of the work is "The Sphinx." I looked at the original marble version (2006) of the sculpture, which is beautiful compared to the gold and to the kind of garishly lit photograph of the gold version. The way her head juts forward on her neck does remind me of the monumental Sphinx and of the Roman and Greek sculptures of sphinxes. Her head is posed above her crotch as if to present a dual mystery (re: iconography of Sphinx), though it's really not that prurient or insulting. Ideal woman= woman presenting crotch doesn't seem to be what was on his mind -- see how softly and blankly that area is presented in the marble, compared to the gold. And ideal seems more Platonic than Playboy--I mean, not an "ideal" of sexual appeal so much as ideally proportioned in contemporary standards of beauty. I think the unrealistic idea of ideal beauty and the beauty as a kind of monster actually comes across, more in the hard and reflective gold version. *g* It's really interesting too, to see how women react to it completely out of context and on its own.

ETA2: Argggg -- I really don't know Quinn's work. The marble is "Sphinx" and this gold version is "Siren"--both monsters, but with different meanings. I'm done.

[hafital.livejournal.com]

:D That was fascinating. And see, I totally need to view modern art with someone who knows art or I won't get it. Obviously you can deconstruct art the same as a story, but I lack the tools for this.

[unovis-lj.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what I'm talking about, as I find out the more I read about this. The original Sphinx was white-painted bronze, not marble. The sculptor has focused on Kate Moss as his own ideal of beauty, not society's. I still think that the open-crotch poses aren't meant to signal sexual invitation, but again, it's just an opinion -- you can at least see some other angles and sculptures here:
http://www.supertouchart.com/2008/08/29/newsmarc-quinn-to-unveil-gold-kate-moss-sphinx-sculpture/

The one that looks flayed is based on a convention in Buddhist sculptures.

[kres.livejournal.com]

Crotch indeed. Brrr.

[halcyon-shift.livejournal.com]

Shock news: man thinks flexible woman is ideal