Category Archives: Art

Medusa strikes back! ….unnecessarily, and at the wrong person

October 20, 2020

Last week, a seven foot tall bronze sculpture by Luciano Garbati, entitled Medusa With The Head of Perseus, was unveiled at a park in Lower Manhattan, to be on display for the next six months. The inverted depiction of the 16th century Florentine masterpiece, Perseus With The Head Of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, is claimed to portray Medusa in “a moment of somberly empowered self-defense”. It is, without doubt, intended to be a feminist statement.

At first glance, it’s easy to see why an audience might be so impressed by this work. “Hell yeah feminism, down with the patriarchy, #nastywoman, etc.” But if you’re going to use classical mythology to try to make a point about contemporary feminism and the #MeToo movement, you need to do a bit more research and a bit more critical thinking than Luciano Garbati seems to have in the process of creating this piece.

To begin with, it would seem the artist’s understanding of Medusa as a mythological character, and of Greek mythology in general, is somewhat rudimentary. Like many of the most enduring myths of Ancient Greece, there are numerous versions of Medusa’s story, and the variations begin literally from the very start. Arguably, the most commonly known version of Medusa’s origin myth is that she was originally a beautiful mortal women and only acquired her monstrous form after being cursed by Athena — but there are also versions of her story in which she was said to have always been a gorgon, thus negating the entire premise upon which Garbati’s art is based. Even following the same general branch of the Medusa myth as the artist did (ie. that she was originally a beautiful mortal woman), her being raped by Poseidon is again only one variation of the story. In some versions, Medusa and Poseidon were having a consensual affair; in others, Poseidon wasn’t even involved at all, and the reason for Medusa’s curse was her claiming to be more beautiful than Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. (Hubris was generally the main reason for mortals being cursed by the gods in Greek mythology, as it was considered the highest of offences to proclaim oneself superior to the gods in any way.) Furthermore, the particular translations of key phrases in early mythological literature have a very strong impact on how the myth is interpreted by modern (and even not-so-modern) readers. For example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which the artist cites as their reference, the word “defiled” in relation to Poseidon’s actions towards Medusa is often used instead of “rape”, despite the latter word regularly being used elsewhere in the same text, eg. The Rape of Europa. Logically, this could lend to the conclusion that Ovid wasn’t literally describing the interaction as a rape, but rather perhaps a loss of virginity, or even simply a sex act that for one reason or another might have been deemed indecent

Regardless of how the rape or not-rape of Medusa is depicted though, the crux of the story is that Medusa wasn’t punished simply for being a rape victim; she was punished for desecrating Athena’s temple, which is not necessarily the same thing.

As for poor, newly beheaded Perseus: as far as Greek heroes go, Perseus was most definitely “one of the good guys”. The synopsis of (Garbati’s chosen interpretation of) the Medusa myth on the MWTH Project’s website conveniently neglects to mention that Perseus’ quest to behead Medusa was in fact a necessary part of a quest to save another woman, and to protect his own mother. Yet in this work, Medusa — who killed many innocent people herself as a gorgon, let us not forget — is elevated to the position of heroine, and the wrongful death of an actual hero celebrated as an act of female empowerment. Punishing an innocent man for the alleged wrongdoings of another is an act of wrath, not justice.

“Logically”, it would make more sense for Medusa to be holding the head of either Poseidon or Athena, since in several versions of the myth they’re the ones who actually wronged her. But even then, what message would that be that sending? Not only would it be sending the harmful message that violent revenge is an acceptable — nay, celebrated — response to being hurt, but given the myth’s varied narratives, it could also be argued that it sends the message that it’s okay to pick and choose whichever particular narrative suits your agenda, and use it to justify your actions, without taking into account other interpretations and possibilities.

Whether or not Medusa was actually a victim differs between versions of her myth, but as an artist, Garbati consciously makes the choice to definitively state that she is one, and that her hypothetical revenge on an innocent party — rather than on the people who victimised her — is an act of empowerment.

It’s not. Violent revenge on an entire gender is certainly not what the #MeToo movement is supposed to be about. Women are empowered by, and are actively seeking, true justice, not arbitrary punishment of men in general. Simply inverting the roles in a myth like Perseus and Medusa’s feels like a cheap attempt to cash in on the female empowerment “trend”, without putting any effort into considering the deeper meaning of choosing to work within the context of a well-known but complex myth. It feels worse than hollow: it feels exploitative. (It’s also worth noting, if you haven’t already, the presence of the male gaze in the lines of Medusa’s body. Medusa’s body was supposed to be monstrous and snake-covered too, not just her hair. So why has she been depicted here with an athletic, conventionally attractive, human female body?)

Perhaps the most tragic thing of all in this situation is that there are so many strong, powerful women in Greek mythology who could be the subject of artworks celebrating female strength and empowerment. Cyrene, Atalanta, Otrera, Antigone, Messene. Artists who want to call upon the Greek myths as a source of inspiration would do better to give a platform to the heroines that already exist in mythology, rather than trying to create a new one by butchering other myths that don’t really fit the intended message anyway.

Tagged art, feminism, mythology

A new way of seeing: Robert Mapplethorpe & the perfect medium

October 30, 2017

There’s something about Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography that evokes a sense of awe no matter how many times I’ve seen a particular image before.

The images on display at the Robert Mapplethorpe: the perfect medium exhibition I saw this weekend at the Art Gallery of New South Wales were all ones I had seen before, having had the privilege of checking out the exhibition at its dual-venue inaugural run at LACMA and the Getty Center in Los Angeles last year. Yet, having seen almost the exact same exhibition before did nothing to dull the thrill of viewing #2 in Sydney. I’d like to think this is more a testament to the power of Mapplethorpe’s work than it is to my poor memory and excitability.

Self portraits, 1980. (© Robert Mapplethorpe)

That Mapplethorpe was one of his own favourite models is apparent from the very start, with a triptych of self portraits adorning the wall at the entrance to the exhibition. In these as with most of his other self-portraits, there’s a clear sense of the artist consciously adopting a variety of roles for the camera’s benefit: in the iconic self-portrait depicting Mapplethorpe in archetypal “bad boy” mode, his leather jacket and cigarette are as much a prop as his knife and make-up in the next two portraits.

There’s a single wall devoted to Mapplethorpe’s early experimentations with collage, readymade sculpture and jewellery-making before the focus shifts to long-time friend and muse Patti Smith. In addition to numerous well-known portraits (including those used on the Horses and Wave album covers, and the iconic image of Smith cutting her own hair), the 1978 short film Still Moving is on show, starring a drugged-up Smith being photographed by Mapplethorpe himself as she moves through a set comprised of draped fabric, at one stage toying with a doll/statue/puppet of Mephistopheles, the demonic figure from the well-known German folk legend Faust. It’s a surreal and somewhat unnerving film, like watching a playback of a dream. Suffice to say, I thought it was rather brilliant.

Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith in New York, 1970. (© Norman Seeff)

Besides Smith, there’s a slew of other celebrity portraits on display: musicians, actors, and most interestingly, fellow artist-photographers such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Cindy Sherman. Such images clearly impress even further on account of their subject matter, but I’m far more interested in his photographs of lesser (or un-) known models, where the style and sentiment of the image isn’t dwarfed by the illustriousness of the subject. Many of Mapplethorpe’s portraits are homoerotic in nature, ranging from subtle and tender to quasi-pornographic, and it could be perceived as an intentional tribute to his life as an openly gay man in the 60s-80s that these images are scattered throughout the exhibition rather than housed in a separate section. In glass cases, a selection of Mapplethorpe’s personal items, mostly pornographic ephemera, are on display; memorabilia-cum-penetralia including X-rated gay skin magazines, mail-order photographs of male nudes, and a copy of Stripped & Strapped: The Odd Games Some People Play. (You can probably guess what that book’s about without me having to spell it out.) While in theory it might seem odd and even mildly indecorous to display items of the sort usually expected to be hidden under one’s mattress, in this context it doesn’t come across as tasteless or even particularly shocking: these themes, after all, are openly addressed in Mapplethorpe’s work, without embarrassment. If he’s not ashamed to show us, why should we be ashamed to look?

Joe, NYC, 1978 (© Robert Mapplethorpe)

The most explicit of Mapplethorpe’s work, those photographs belonging to the infamous X Portfolio (as well as part of the Z Portfolio), were the only images displayed in a separate room with a content advisory warning at the entrance, which I suppose is reasonable enough. There, the X (homosexual sadomasochistic images), Y (floral still lifes) and Z (African-American male portraits) portfolios were displayed all together in a checkerboard-style grid, one portfolio per row. It was an arresting display, but although at first the contrast between the Y portfolio’s understated elegance and the X and Z portfolios’ raw, confrontational power seemed jarring, the three series’ images are united by their focus on perfection in the physical form, dramatic lighting, and highly-ordered composition.

X, Y and Z portfolios on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Other walls of the exhibition were devoted to further selections of Mapplethorpe’s floral still lifes and African-American portraits, as well as his series of photographs of female bodybuilder Lisa Lyon, and a handful of very striking photographs of sculptures depicting figures from Greek mythology. These were new to me: I’d not come across them before at the Los Angeles venues (although they may very well have been there and I just missed them), and feel they warrant further investigation.

Ermes, 1988. (© Robert Mapplethorpe)

The exhibition’s closing image was one of my favourites: Mapplethorpe’s final self-portrait, taken shortly before his death from AIDS complications in 1989. In it he stares determinedly into the camera, noticeably aged and weakened by illness, hand clutching a skull-topped cane. Nothing of his body except his hand and face are visible against the dark, high-contrast background; it’s like he’s already starting to vanish from this world. It’s a haunting image, made all the more powerful by the uneasy feelings it evokes.

Self-portrait, 1988. (© Robert Mapplethorpe)

“Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed, in the twinkling of an eye…”

Here is that eye, and its vision. Here is the tension
we need to imagine that mystery; in the tension between
darkness and light, between black and white.
Here in Robert’s photographs.

– Paul Schmidt, from the introduction to the X Portfolio

Tagged art exhibitions, Robert Mapplethorpe

Hokusai: Old Man Mad about Drawing

October 20, 2017

My first introduction to Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai was through my best friend, who is a big fan of his work. Back in July, the National Gallery of Victoria opened a retrospective exhibition of his work, and having been insanely busy with work for the past few months, I only finally got a chance to see it today, in its closing week.

Having previously been somewhat disappointed by NGV’s Van Gogh and the seasons exhibition, I was pleasantly surprised by the scope and quality of the Hokusai exhibition. Joining works from NGV’s own collection were many pieces on loan from the Japan Ukiyo-E Museum (JUM) in Matsumoto, and a great many (if not all) of Hokusai’s most notable works – including two early rare prints of what is arguably the most recognisable image in Japanese art, The great wave off Kanagawa – were on display.

The great wave off Kanagawa

Hokusai was well-known for producing his paintings and woodblock prints in series: the most well-known being Thirty-six views of Mt Fuji, of which The great wave is a part. In these prints, the omnipresent mountain is often juxtaposed with scenes of everyday human life in the city of Edo (now modern-day Tokyo), highlighting its cultural significance to the Japanese people. One of my favourites from this series is Kajikazawa in Kai Province, in which the peak of Mt Fuji can be seen in the background while a fisherman casts lines into the sea. (In my mind, the fisherman is trying to catch or tame the waves. In reality, I suppose he’s just trying to catch…fish.)

Kajikazawa in Kai Province

In addition to the Mt Fuji collection, several other series were on display, including A Tour to the Waterfalls in Various Provinces, which I personally found to be the most powerful and visually striking set of works in the exhibition. (The Amida Falls in the far reaches of the Kisokaido Road in particular is just stunning.) Hokusai’s literary interests are also evident in One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse, a series of prints based on the Japanese poetry anthology Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.

The Amida Falls in the far reaches of the Kisokaido Road

Gonchunagon Sadaie (based on a poem by Fujiwara no Teika)

‘Like the salt sea-weed
Burning in the evening calm
On Matsuo’s shore
All my being is aglow
Waiting one who does not come’

– Fujiwara no Teika

One of the most interesting series on display, however, was a small collection of five woodblock prints comprising the One Hundred Ghost Stories series. Each depicting a Japanese ghost story from the Edo period, they’re genuinely quite creepy, and a world apart from the serene beauty of Thirty-six views of Mt Fuji or A Tour to the Waterfalls.

The ghost of Oiwa

“The main character in ‘The mysterious story of Yotsuya’ is the virtuous Oiwa, who is married to Tamiya Iemon, a struggling samurai turned umbrella maker. Iemon falls in love with his young neighbour Oume, whose father administers a potion to Oiwa that awfully disfigures her. Iemon is disgusted and wants a divorce, but in despair Oiwa kills herself instead. Later, Iemon marries Oume, but is tricked by the ghost of Oiwa into killing his new wife. Iemon rushes away in horror and takes refuge in a temple, where in the middle of the night Oiwa’s horrific, deformed face appears in an old torn temple lantern. Driven to insanity, Iemon takes his own life.”

(Sidenote: I think I’ll be sleeping with the lights on tonight.)

Hokusai, the self-described “old man mad about drawing”, sadly never attained great financial success in his own lifetime. Yet within a decade of his death he would be cited as a major influence by European Impressionist artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Paul Gaugin and Edgar Degas, who all collected his woodcuts.

In the words of the latter:

“Hokusai is not just one artist among others in the Floating World. He is an island, a continent, a whole world in himself.”

Tagged art exhibitions, Hokusai, Japanese art