Intimate Bodies Public Spaces

A women artists exhibition

Cecilia Nuin - curator

This women exhibition, Intimate Bodies Public Spaces, explores the concept of phenomenology. It focuses on the work of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception. This show highlights the idea of women’s bodies moving through public spaces like the street and the gallery, and brings together works about female body with its representation, actions, and reactions. Referring to the body, Merleau-Ponty states,”Inside and outside are inseparable. The world is wholly inside and I am wholly outside myself.”1 A sense of ambiguity permeates the juxtaposition of intimate bodies against their wandering through public spaces. Eleven national and international artists participate in this exhibit, and it includes media: painting, photography, video and installation.

In her work Alice Factor, Vanessa Garcia depicts a collage made of colorful, glass beads with heavy impasto. This multi-layered work is filled with flowers which radiates like sun rays. In a lower right corner a cartoon image of Alice in Wonderland looks up. Placed in a blue bubble, Alice stands in the intimate safe haven that is home. For the artist,”Alice is the epitome of an "intimate body" confronting the be-all of "public spaces" -- the world at large.” Above a grouping of Smiley faces, and a red head pin up girl smile at the viewer. Greens, yellows, purples, and reds enhanced the rich, painterly surface. Butterflies in the upper area represent ever present change --a transformation that Alice suffers with every experience.

Rachel Hoffman mirrors the story of Alice by enacting her work in the gallery and by performing interventions in the streets of San Francisco. For Hoffman, it does not take two to Tango. At the rhythm of La Comparsita Tango, Hoffman’s video Lady Danger presents a long haired woman dancing. As the camera zooms in a tiger stuffed head sits at the crotch of the dancer. Oscillating between sensual movements and the framing of every shot, Lady Danger is an anthropomorphic vivant sculpture. According to Hoffman,”There is a tension in the movements, a lot of macho and almost masturbatory hip thrusting, which is not a characteristic of Tango.” She is provocative and thought provoking. Literally, she places her intimate being in public space challenging the viewer’s gaze. Hoffman is feline --sexual.

By downloading images from the internet, Taraneh Hemami created Streets of Tehran. Tied with black thread, this installation made of small cut out images display an array of women in different fashion. They wear from conservative black gowns to Western attire accented with blue scarves. They also wear the Chador or head scarf. Since 1979, women have been demonstrating and demanding equal rights in Tehran. Referring to this issue the artist says,”... a more silent demonstration defies the government’s strict Islamic dress code and increasingly pushes the boundary for what is accepted.” By decontextualizing these images, Hemami’s work sheds light on a subject rarely discussed by the media, and gives insight on the struggle lead by women in Iran.

Camilla Newhagen’s vellum drawing Torso delineated in a peach hue depicts a free flowing outline of the female form. A superimposed white drawing of the spinal cord contrasts with a blue bouquet framing the left corner. These delicate, pastel images convey the link between nature and the body. As Newhagen poetically puts it,”Not understanding that with time of beauty/ Comes wilting, dying and re-birthing of the body.” Relationship is a latex relief on a waxy canvas. A pair of dolls precariously placed on the lower left corner of a rectangular, yellowish canvas depict a couple in a full embrace. The dolls evoke a tenderness enhanced by their warm, and creamy texture. They seem to be falling into a void enraptured by their own passion. Engaged in lovemaking, the couple seems oblivious to the world.

In Time spells: manto y aparición, Patricia Tinajero inspired herself in the work “Unpacking my Library” by philosopher Walter Benjamin. Blue, pink, and white, rolled, static laundry sheets create a giant vulva that hangs ten feet from the ceiling. The vulva recalls the cape of a virgin goddess. By collecting on a daily basis domestic materials, Tinajero alludes to the close tie between the body, and the domestic setting. The artist attributes another meaning to the artwork by calling it shroud and apparition giving the piece a religious connotation.

Cristina Velazquez created a work called Untitled, and it is made of fabric, thread, and yarn. The fabric’s pieces are sewn with beige and off-white squares conforming a canvas. Superimposed, nine embroidered, stitched outlines, in a concentric fashion, create the shape of a vulva. Through the depiction of veils, and vaginas, she makes direct reference to woman’s taboo parts. In this manner, Velazquez brings the intimate to a public space, and what is hidden into public view. Alluding to a topographic nature, terrain is synonymous with the earth. Reminiscent of Ana Mendieta earth-body works, Velazquez equates body shapes to the earth contours.

In La consciencia de un instante de lapsus 1, a digital image with marble over plexiglas, Cristina Ferrandez depicts a woman on the ground, curled up in a fetal position --naked. The viewer is unable to see the long haired woman’s face. This work alludes to an ambiguous existential moment. While in La vulnerabilidad de la instrospeccion, a work with the same technique, a nude body nestles on the river bank in the safety of a nest built with reddish reeds. Intimate, the body, with its back towards the viewer, gives a sense of vulnerability in the ever expansive nature that surrounds it. A cloudy sky looms over, and the wide river serves as an analogy to our present life --serene, and yet tumultuous.

Aurora Meneghello in Locked, a film-still photograph, presents a woman with a naked torso against a window pane. The viewer sees her bare back and protuberances of her bony spine. In this work, Meneghello conflates the intimate space of domesticity against the borderline to an outside world represented by the window. The woman embraces herself holding her stomach with her arms. She bends forwards as if she is in excruciating pain. The protagonist seems to suffocate unable to extricate herself from the oppressive situation she is suffering. The viewer watches unable to reach out.

Paz de la Calzada’s installation titled Estrellita Jones is about beauty, and the not so attractive beauty rituals. Masks, creams, rollers, and other accroutrements are part of this installation. This work also includes photographs of de la Calzada’s self-portrait wearing blue, red, and green beauty masks respectively. She poses as Estrellita, whose name translated from Spanish means little star. The artist’s pseudonym is a hybrid and ironic comment making reference to big Hollywood stars. By changing her skin’s color, and hiding from the viewer, she alludes to body image and mascarade.

Annamarta Dostourian’s piece called Inanna is inspired in the Sumerian goddess of the same name. She is associated with the seasons, love, life, and rejuvenation. Ancient Sumer is present day Iraq. The piece is a also a homage to Iraqi people who died in the war. Made of knitted gold, and copper wire, the shining dress is flanked by two projectors. The projections of the El Mundo and Al-Ahram, a Spanish and Egyptian newspapers respectively, are part of this memorial to iraquis dead in places like Basra. By creating this work, Dostourian tackles a political issue and brings attention to hard to deal news in a poignant manner.

Similarly, Susan Garry-Lorica’s White Dress is made of a found, and foam packing, material. The chemise style dress with a belt sits across a narrow waist. The dress invokes an absent body. The chicken wire armature serves as a mannequin to the pristine, transparent dress with “pleat-like” forms. It is an armless and practically a headless piece with its tiny head recalling the Venus of Milo. In Black Stockings and Red Shoes with high heels, the artist brings sex appeal to the pieces by creating a pair of black back seam stockings. The sculpture stands for the absent legs. Slender, slinky, and delicate, the work built with painted wire mesh, adds a touch of eroticism, and the red shoes, the epitome of sexiness, with its velvety like impression, are fetishistic in quality.

The exhibition Intimate Bodies Public Spaces presents works, and ideas that range from the body, and the domestic, to the issues of space in the gallery and public settings. The works that the above eleven women artists display are subdued, and yet elegant, and a sense of cohesiveness is felt when held together in the gallery space. The pieces confront the viewer with highly politicized issues, and challenge her in a direct manner. It also bring us closer to the understanding that the separation of space between domestic, and the public is tenuous. It is this issue to which Merleau-Ponty refers to that is fraught with ambiguities. Our bodies carry intimate feelings in public spaces, and we bring back home the experiences perceived through our own bodies in the world.

Intimate Bodies Public Spaces shows from March 1 thru March 31 at Mina Dresden at 312 Valencia in San Francisco.

1 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Phenomenology of Perception. London:Routledge, 2003.