I was born and raised in DC and the Smithsonian museums have always been a second home for me. They are where I spend my days off, walking alone through crowds of tourists, absorbing work from artists I learn about later in art history classes. Over the past month, I have visited several major DC museums, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), the National Gallery/National Portrait Gallery, the Hirshorn, and the Renwick, to name a few. I want to discuss a few works in particular that I was especially excited about, and maybe draw some connections between them.
The show that I saw at the NMWA is titled Uncanny. Many pieces included in the Uncanny exhibition are predicated on some distortion of the physical body, often the female body in particular, whether that be through abstraction, reimagination of form, or some experimental use of medium. Distortion of the body is one surefire way to provoke unease in a viewer, as the audience will identify viscerally with the subject.
Some of the artists in this show are prominent figures in feminist art history, including Judy Chicago, who created the Dinner Party sculptural installation (permanent collection at the Brooklyn Museum) which was made up of 39 place-setting sculptures dedicated to significant women throughout history, forming a massive triangular table. Many of the place settings are sculpted to look like female genitalia, which for some may provoke discomfort, but were intended as a celebration of the female body and experience.
Judy Chicago (American, born 1939). The Dinner Party, 1974–79. Ceramic, porcelain, textile, 576 × 576 in. (1463 × 1463 cm). Brooklyn Museum; Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. (Photo: Donald Woodman)
Her work for the NMWA is a series of paintings on glass and porcelain that explore the grief of climate change and extinction. This existential interpretation of ‘uncanny’ broadens the scope of the exhibition from experiences of the body to wider connectivity with the natural world, which can be just as disconcerting.
Judy Chicago, Stranded, from The End: A Meditation on Death and Extinction, 2016; Kiln-fired glass paint on black glass, 12 x 18 in.; Courtesy of the artist; Salon 94, New York; and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco; © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo © Donald Woodman/ARS, NY
Another artist I was particularly excited to see was Louise Bourgeois, whose work is renowned for its disturbing and emotionally affecting subject matter, and, well, its uncanniness. Her work for this show is Untitled (with foot), “carved from pink marble, depicts a baby’s foot sticking out from beneath a perfect sphere. Sculpted to allude to smooth, tender flesh under a heavy globe-like object, the work is equally alluring and alarming. Bourgeois evokes the unresolved tension of the universal trauma of birth, a recurrent theme in her art.” (Orin Zahra, associate curator NMWA) This disembodied limb fused to the smooth, fleshy sphere suggests a monstrous, inhuman child, lacking most identifying human features, but still heartbreakingly vulnerable to the dangers of the world around it. This vulnerability is contrasted with the rough hewn surface the figure is placed on top of, suggesting a cruel and unwelcoming world. This piece reminds me a bit of the Eraserhead baby from the David Lynch movie, iykyk.
Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (with foot), 1989; Pink marble, 30 x 26 x 21 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Museum Purchase with funds provided by the Roger S. Firestone Foundation Fund, the FRIENDS of The Corcoran Gallery of Art, William A. Clark Fund, the gift of William E. Share (by exchange), The Women’s Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Carolyn Alper); © The Easton Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Eraserhead baby, from the movie Eraserhead, directed by David Lynch RIP
I was also struck by Felix Gonzales Torres’s approach to portraiture, which feels in line with the work of the Uncanny show, as his candy works are direct representations of a human body, that can in turn be consumed and continuously altered by the audience. This action of eating the candy that is the body of some specific person feels like a violation, and yet the candy is inviting and innocuous without its context. The constant turnover and reinvention of the portrait through the removal and replacement of pieces of candy reminds me of a thought I have had many times before, which is ‘the only constant is change’ or something to that effect, which I suppose is cheap buddhism for coping with the terrifying uncertainty of life. This work also reminds me of the blessed sacrament, i.e, the ‘blood and body of christ’ that catholics consume when they take communion, which provokes questions in my mind about how portraiture can be a portal to eternal life, especially when the portrait is meant to be consumed/integrated into the being of the audience. Gonzales-Torres’s work has a way of sticking with you, and this endlessly thought-spiralling effect that his candy works in particular have on me make me fascinated to learn more about him and his influences.
"Untitled" (Portrait of Dad), 1991
White mint candies in clear wrappers, endless supply
Overall dimensions vary with installation
Ideal weight: 175 lb.
© Estate Felix Gonzalez-Torres Courtesy Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
Photo: Matailong Du
Written by Zora Pauk
Gallery Associate