Lisa Rockford’s “The Gaze”
There are few artistic subjects more universally relatable than the human body. Unless and until we manage to ascend into the realm of light beings, meat sacks cover all of us. Our bodies may generate anxiety or discomfort from time to time, but they also protect us from the elements and remind us, indeed, that we are human—that we are, in spite of what our current national and international schisms may augur, all one.
These are a few of the ideas that percolate throughout “The Body Show,” running through April 19 at Arts Warehouse in Delray Beach. The group exhibition is, in the gallery’s own verbiage, “a collection of works that poetically reference the body through subtle and bold statements.” Subtlety, in fact, leads the way, as few of the chosen artists took the direction of, say, graphic nudity or body horror or provocation for provocation’s sake.
The first installation many viewers will encounter, Jeanne Jaffe’s “Pre-Verbal Strand,” epitomizes this nuanced approach. An act of artistic anthropology, Jaffe’s cast paper sculptures, all of a roughly similar size, dangle in rows, some of them clearly suggesting human appendages such as hands and feet, others only vaguely evoking bones and organs. The result is a display of body parts, familiar and exotic, that may well have evolved from some primordial soup, here and elsewhere.
Ates Isildak’s work is among the most direct considerations of the body theme. It’s a series of his Polaroid photographs, collected in a photobook that visitors are free to peruse, of people generally on the fringes—Isildak puts faces to the punk, goth, queer and kink subcultures, emerging as something like the Nan Goldin of South Florida alternative photography.
Isildak is rare among the exhibition, as he is one of only two male artists chosen, a distinction that seems important given the differences society has placed on male- and female-identifying bodies. But even the works that bristle with feminist energy often deploy humor and irony; they are more cerebral than agitated. Diane Arietta’s “Aphrodite Unbound” is a giant burlap ball, coarse and rugged, dragging a 10-foot braid stretched outward like Rapunzel’s hair, and culminating with a literal bow on top—an earthy deconstruction of myth, fairy tale and the feminine ideal, leavened by a deadpan wit.
I’m particularly fond of Janine Brown’s “The Weight on Her Shoulders,” an installation of department-store mannequin torsos covered in paper pulp from fashion magazines. As the title indicates, one such torso carries three others on its (her) shoulders, like the weight of the world upon Atlas—a simple and ingenuous expression of the pressures placed upon women to be mothers, caretakers, breadwinners and everything in between.
Lisa Rockford’s “VEIN Mapping” is among the most personal and brave explorations of the aging body. The artist snapped pictures of her own spider veins using an endoscopic camera, then embroidered the resulting images on cowskin vellum. The resulting fiber art resembles alien archipelagos or meteorological blobs.
Though a “Body Show” by its nature implies figural art, the exhibition is not without its abstract works, and they are among its most evocative. Nature, art and anatomy conjoin in Autumn Horne’s “My Body is My Story,” an almost Rorschachian collection of rain and ocean water on cyanotype; each piece has a tactile feel, conjuring images of inner organs. Renee Phillips’ “Breathwork,” a 3D work of latex and spray paint on wood, suggests a fetal ultrasound with its womblike gradations.
Other highlights include Judy Polstra’s hand-embroidered text art on vintage textiles; Dana Donaty’s maximalist sculptures composed of everyday objects coagulating into extraordinary blobs; and Tracy Guiteau’s “United,” a painting of hands of different shades blurring into each other. Given our divided zeitgeist, this aspirational paean to unity is the body image I’m most going to take with me.
“The Body Show” runs through April 19 at Arts Warehouse, 313 N.E. Third St., Delray Beach; admission is free. For information, call 561/330-9614 or visit artswarehouse.org.
