Sexualized Images at the Armory Show

Walking the floor of the Armory Show with a discerning eye, I happened to notice that there were numerous paintings, sculptures and photographs of nude models. And I'm sure it says something about my sterile, suburban upbringing, but the only nude image I snapped a picture of that day was the cartoonish drawing to the left. Doubtlessly, it was some invisible fetter of socialization that kept me from taking pictures of more nude images, even though as I passed naked body after additional, naked flesh, I noticed a pattern that I wanted to write about.

The pattern was simple. Obvious. To be expected. The nude figures portrayed were largely, and of the vast majority, female. Male nudes were not only rare, but even when they did surface, they were often presented in such a way as to be devoid of sexuality and instead wrought with a basic sense of anatomy. This was not always the case with the ladies.

Many of the female nudes certainly did lack sexualization (which some say may be the difference between art and pornography) but still, many others did not demurely hide behind such a lack. Of course, I'm begging a question that has been begged countless times before: is the objectification of the female body art or exploitation, or some sort of exploitative art?

In class, the merit of the voyeur / photographer snapping posterior photographs of unsuspecting women was called into question. I'm not sure if an answer was ever given. But let's leave that example aside for a moment, because the unwillingness of models calls all kinds of further objections into play. In fact, let's leave the whole tiresome question of art v. porn aside as well.

Instead, I would like to focus solely on the image I was not too shy to take a picture of that day: the image of the 50's pinup girl batting her big eyes over a curved shoulder, showing the slightest crescent of her bottom.

Nearing the end of my time at the Armory Show, having seen maybe 15 representations of naked females, I pored through the digital photos I had collected and decided, quite certainly, that the cartoon seen above was the most sexually charged image of the day. Even when pitted against a live nude, in all the glorious and glossy light that film can capture, the cartoon was the most, well, explicit.

You may argue that this type of qualification is moot because it is based entirely on my subjective view point, and in doing so, you'd have a valid point. But hear me out.

Let's set the image of the young woman aside for a moment, and focus instead on the text. This person (who, again, for the time being is invisible to us) is saying, or rather, because of the exclamation points, yelling, or maybe even moaning, "Ohhh! Dan!" It is my belief that the text instills this simple image, which is comprised of only a few simple, curved lines, with a feeling that the other photographs, which lacked text, lacked. When the artist gave the character (who should still be invisible to us by the way!) words, s/he gave her desire! And with that desire, the image becomes human.

Moreover, and this is my favorite aspect of this image, in addition to the text bubble, right below the "Ohhh! Dan!" is a phrase that has been erased, of which only a trace remains! Set aside Deconstructivism for a moment too–I don't care how sexy Derrida may or may not be! Instead, focus on the trace of the missing words as something much simpler: a mystery. And think, what's sexier than the unknown?

The above two paragraphs were a very quick argument for the sexuality of the cartoon above. If, however, you do happen to agree with me, even if only a little, I would like to point out one further thing about the sexy cartoon woman. And that one thing is that it amazes me how simple it is to create a sexualized image. Just take a few simple curved, a pair of big ole eyes, and a suggestive posture (imbued with some charged text) and you have sex in a sketch!

Moreover, the fact that you do not need an accurate representation to create sexuality, leads me to my favorite discussion topic of all: truth versus illusion! To avoid being verbose, I will sum up with a thought: is (sexual) fantasy more desirable to today's modern human than (sexual) reality? Is this cartoonish image perhaps one small piece of evidence that suggests that maybe, yes, it is?