Notes On A (Potential) Scandal

The work of 14 artists in the 'Flesh,' a show of nudes that's never controversial but occasionally intriguing

By Isabel Heblich,
Star-News Correspondent
Star-News (Currents), December 20, 2007, Wilmington, NC

With all of the sexless icons dominating this season (angels, Santa, Frosty the Snowman) I previewed Bottega's upcoming show Flesh: A Celebration of the Human Form hoping to spice up this otherwise chaste and virtuous month. I suppose that was the idea behind the artist-owned gallery's holiday timing of this show; a saucy sense of humor not lost on our community. Fed up with fruitcake and tired of "merry this" and "merry that," they must've thought, "You know what would make me merry? A little nudity."

I couldn't agree more.

I walked in expecting a two-dimensional red light district and to spend an afternoon in a blissful, mischievous state of voyeurism, but I've seen sexier crucifixion scenes. The faint of genitalia can breathe a sigh of relief; it's pretty PG-13. Nobody can take the sex out of sexuality like an artist. The figurative works of some 14 artists are, as promised, in the buff, but only a few are provocative. Mostly we see nudity here as a kind of dress.

This phenomenon is best described by John Berger in his book of art theory Ways of Seeing: "To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself."

Many tactics of deflecting an arousing sexuality then spring at me from each painting. Many of the nudes have little facial expression, if faces at all. Many of the limbs taper off before the emotionally revealing institutions of hands and feet. Many of the bodies are painted with cool tones. The shape of each body precedes the weight or volume, but mixed-media textures deter a viewer from hugging those curves for too long.

What's baffling is that many of the figures seem ambivalent about their nudity. I expected something a little more taboo from a word like "flesh," a chance to expose and exploit conventions and ideas about sexuality and its underlying connectedness and reality in our everyday world. I thought the day when you could acknowledge, discuss and debate sexuality from somewhere besides an unattached academic place had arrived.(Maybe it has; the opening is this Friday.)

A clear perspective on nudity, relevant to the natural world, did arise in a few works. Gayle Tustin's large-scale ink and gouache nudes border on portraiture; the brush gestures and limited black, white and sienna palette embody a kind of intelligence that's mirrored by them being painted on architectural papers. The men and women, while not sexual initiators themselves, are vulnerable changelings.

Pam Toll's work in this show should be celebrated for its narratives and psychology, but particularly for her ability to paint men as men. In her nude story scenes there are aggressors. They have a man's muscles and wield a man's power while remaining spiritually penetrable, a trait that reveals the artist as a woman. Toll's mixed media piece Stealing Picasso traces the bent line of a woman's back with the ripped edge of an envelope, complete with stamps, a technique that finds the secret sexuality in everyday objects.

Metal artist Kee Wilde-Ramsing's tiny copper nude man succeeds in its silliness and surprising authority: the dichotomy of the penis. Male Nude is like the torso of a tiny armored knight with his unmentionables on the outside. Wilde-Ramsing gets to the point of the male sexual psyche, doesn't dress it up or disguise it in romanticism or thoughtfulness, just simply says, "Here it is."

A lone photograph from Rocco Taldin approaches the female form with a similar bluntness: the torso of a nude brunette looking un-posed as she sits Indian style with a camera (a camera with erect bullets glued to it) in her lap. A conflicting picture as to what gender has the power here, it seems to poke insider fun at the intrinsic voyeuristic/pornographic nature of photography.

Though not a visual brothel or alarming by any means, Flesh is perhaps a big step for Wilmington in potentially opening the dialogue on flesh or exciting the silent mind that asks, "What is revealed and what is hidden? And why?"

Currents: 343-2343; currents.wilmington@starnewsonline.com