Body Politics: Figurative Prints and Drawings from Schiele to De Kooning

Images of the human body reveal a great deal about the cultures that produce them. Whether fashion ads, state portraits, news photos, or works of visual art, they will always mirror, to some degree, the social and political conditions under which they were made. If an image is provocative?that is, if it strays into forbidden territory, or makes explicit something that we don’t wish to acknowledge or confront?it will spark debate and may even stimulate change. On the other hand, affirmative and celebratory pictures can bring people together and bolster our sense of community. This is how figurative images can be said to be “political”?though they are pictures of individual bodies, they stand for a larger truth about us all. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a cigar is more than just a cigar.

@ Walker Art Center

これからギャラリーへ。