From "The Ooh-La-La Fake Feminism of That Big Naked Medusa Statue By the Courthouses" (New York Magazine).
October 15, 2020
"The artist thinks that this is a feminist statue because it doesn’t portray the usual subject — Perseus, the Greek mythic hero who killed Medusa, cut off her head, and..."
"... used it as a weapon against his foes. [Luciano] Garbati claims that by reversing the roles, having Medusa carrying around the head of Perseus, that this is some radical political act. It is not. The only way this might have been true is if she had maybe been holding his genitals aloft or stomping on his body. As it is, this is nothing more than yet another naked female figure made by yet another white male artist — a.k.a. business as usual. What about the great craft, you ask? The craft is routine. This is generic casting and modeling at best. Mostly, this Medusa looks like a way-too-big version of all those little models of Michelangelo’s David sold at any Florentine gift shop..., As an object, this sculpture is dead, optically inert, intellectually barren.... Really, it is conceptual art 101 at its most obvious and simplistic.... In the real story Medusa turned men to stone. Here she … holds a man’s head. But really she’s still the total object of the male gaze here...."
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52 comments:
War on statues is modern book burning. Iconoclasts arise and destroy stuff.
Is it even worth wondering what the writer's evaluation of the work would have been if the artist had been a non-binary BIPOC?
Except for the snakey hair she's pretty hot : )
Maybe it would appeal more to critical theorists if Medusa were wearing one of those hooded red costumes from "The Handmaid's Tale."
If this becomes too controversial, the statue could be donated to one of those classy gentlemen's clubs.
The Neener-Neener School of art. Profound. Subtle. And so transgressive!
The statue would be something if Medusa was holding Athena's head because Athena is who made beautiful Medusa into a monster because Medusa was raped by Poseidon.
Sculpture as a medium is obviously too much for us to handle at the moment, let alone the erection of new monuments. We're back on finger-paints.
New Medusa is so empowered she even shaved her beaver. And I thought that was a relatively new thing with the young gals of today. Learn something new every day. Thank you, artists!
Joe Smith said...Except for the snakey hair she's pretty hot : )
That's what's really transgressive about it--she's not ugly and isn't built from tampons.
Al Pacino probably likes it.
Behold, the joyless task of critiquing politicized art. Everyone involved seems to have had their soul wounded. The older ones probably remember when art celebrated beauty and timeless stories.
"Is it even worth wondering what the writer's evaluation of the work would have been if the artist had been a non-binary BIPOC?"
I was rather surprised to discover that the writer is a man. Check your male gaze, Dude!
So I'm going to start things and ask:
Where do you think that Medusa is on the HOT/Crazy Matrix?
(feminists have become soooo boring so why bother with that?)
Again libs are tied up in knots from their own convoluted ideologies. Are women's bodies something to be proud or ashamed of?
So I looked up the Medusa story last week. Medusa was treated very cruelly even by the standards of long ago. Maybe in this new hot naked rendition she needed the sword to slay Perseus because her "turn to stone" power doesn't work on gay or trans men. So instead, she had to chop off his head. But that makes her a gay or trans-basher, which is a far worse crime, so I guess she got what she deserved originally and the statue should be pulled down by the mob.
Maybe the artist can start work on a hot naked shaved Lorena Bobbit statute next.
For. Fuck. Sake.
She turns people to stone, so did she cleave through his stone neck to get the stone head?
I thought the story went that Perseus (hero) was the good guy, killing Medusa (petrifier of innocent bystanders, whatever her backstory). So 'feminist reimagining' is equivalent to 'bad guy wins'?
The 2-bit sexism of 2-bit feminism.
The politics are amateurish. The sculpture is amateurish. The critique is amateurish.
Can't anybody here play this game?
America in 2020 is a triumph of perpetual adolescence. If 'triumph' is the right word. One could also call it 'rule by the misfits.'
Makes sense. We've been glorifying perpetual adolescents and misfits since the '60s. Two generations of undermining what makes a healthy society. So now we have a profoundly unhealthy society and no adult supervision. The adults have been chased from the field. Some of them ran to their tents, put on adolescent trappings and came back to participate in the destruction.
Sad.
I do appreciate the shaved vagina.
Wasn't Athena responsible for the creation of the Medusa?
"...sold at any Florentine gift shop..." HAHAHAHA!! Oh, what a burn.
I guess it's crass, boring and socially unacceptable to question an article about a statue's lack of feminist bona fides that's written by a male art critic named Jerry Saltz.
I mean is this some sort of "who's dick is bigger" contest between the critic and the artist?
C'mon, that's funny.
When my children were small, we would often visit the Baltimore Musem of Art's outdoor Sculpture Garden. Among the boxing rabbit, giant cubist owl head, pint-sized nude Degas, and giant Henry Moore there stands a life sized statue of a lovely nude woman in a gracefully surprised pose.
I used to tell my toddlers, when my wife was not with us, which was often as she was a medical resident, that this was a statue of their Mother. I'd get them to yell, "Hello, Mommy!" as loud as they could so the statue of their Mom could "hear" them. They did so with gusto.
After half a dozen such training sessions, it was fun to watch my wife's confusion when the kids raced over to the statue and yelled, "Hello, Mommy!" I never explained, the kids were too young to do so, and so the mystery became a family legend. Not as exciting a story as when my 2.5 year old son recreated the attack on Pearl Harbor by dive-bombing into the water feature in the Sculpture Garden on December 7th, 1992, but a family legend nonetheless.
Art is there to enjoy. If you've never played hide and seek around a sculpture garden with kids under 4 years old, I strongly recommend you go and do so.
My kids would have counted the snakes on Medusa's head with glee, and examined Perseus' severed neck entrails with rapture.
My God! The things people go on about
"New Medusa is so empowered she even shaved her beaver."
I think it is rather that she has no pubic hair because she has no vulva. Like Barbie.
Is it at all possible to judge a work of art on its own, without reference to the artist, the way they do blind wine-tastings?
mikee-- I like your sane attitude towards these things. I hope you and your wife pass it on to your kids, who sound like fun.
The Greeks are white. She needs to be pulled down!
It’s Lady Ghostbusters redux.
Why would she go into battle naked? Especially against a foe like Perseus?
It’s almost like she’s “asking for it."
Maillard: One kid is a princess ballerina rock climbing software engineer, the other is a gun nut weight lifter optical fiber engineer. They are fun.
And anyone who names themselves after the reason beef is best on a grill is OK by me.
It can't be feminist. There's no vagina.
Here's Plato and Socrates with the wrong one writing. Also Plato seems to have an erection.
Spray paint her pink. Problem solved.
New Medusa is so empowered she even shaved her beaver.
It used to be a mound of writhing snakes.
Medusa shaves her nether regions and has no external genitalia. Wat means?
Some people bitch no matter what.
The question becomes why even try to make them happy?
The story of this statue is that Medusa battled Perseus, won... and was then turned to stone by a man.
The work would have had more resonance and significance if had used Kathy Griffin as a model. It would have become a celebrated work of art. He really missed the turn there.
What could be a more fitting symbol of the "me too" movement than a wrathful woman cutting the wrong guy's head off?
It's absolutely amazing that the National Women's Law Center would accept donations based on the sale of small versions of the statue -- an image of deranged vengeance triumphing over justice.
Vulgarity Warning.
Insert Carpet/Drapes Joke.
Warning Off.
it could have been worse--
...a nude Kathy Griffin with Trump's head.
The Left's infantilism is represented in their iconography--
Ascribing fantastical powers to their heroines like kids with 'superheroes'.
"Fearless Girl" etc.
"The monument has its fair share of critics." - news.artnet.com
What number of critics would be an unfair share?
In these times controversy alone is sufficient to make "art." No talent to tape a banana to a wall, shred a document, or drop a religious bauble into a bottle of piss. The statue has generated controversy. Ipso facto, with or without vulva, it is art.
I think that there are no pubes because it’s not a sculpture, it’s cast from a live model. Tom Wolfe had an interesting little vignette about this in “Hooking Up” which was a pretty good book. There is a Korean War memorial done by an actual skilled artist in Washington, DC and one of these fake artists asked how he got the models to hold that position without suffocating during the mold making process. Which of course there never was any mold made because the artist had mastered his craft. I wish I could remember more about it.
Isn't that a statue of Kathy Griffin holding Trump's head? Isn't that sufficiently woke?
tim in vermont asked: "Why would she go into battle naked? Especially against a foe like Perseus?"
Maybe she was trying to unman him.
If so, she missed big-time.
mikee: Thanks, and well done with the kids, but God help us, not with the steak.
William said...
The work would have had more resonance and significance if had used Kathy Griffin as a model. It would have become a celebrated work of art. He really missed the turn there.
*******************
Ever seen her tits? Think again.
These wimmin are intent on no one liking them and hopefully women in general.
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