Disrobed
03/14/2013-06/11/2013
The
D’Aguilar Art Foundation presents “Disrobed”, an exhibition exploring the
beauty of the unclothed human form via a diverse collection of paintings,
drawings and sculptures. The show
includes numerous artworks from the DAF, as well as works from the collections
of Dawn Davies, Jay Koment, Bryan and Tracie Glinton, Tony Jervis and Obediah
Smith.
Featured
artists include Kishan Munroe, Allan Wallace, Brent Malone, John Beadle,
Antonius Roberts, John Cox, DeDe Brown, June Collie, Toby Lunn, Sue Katz and
Heino Schmid from the Bahamas, besides numerous international works.
Art
history books are replete with images depicting the male and female nudes,
principal subjects for artists dating to prehistoric times. In eras since, paintings and statues have celebrated
the complexity and wonder of the nude body in myriad poses. From the classical athleticism of ancient
Greek sportsmen captured in bronze around 450 BC, to the voluptuous portrayal
of Venus by Boticelli during the Italian Renaissance, the nude has inspired
artists worldwide to create compelling works of art that form a distinct and
memorable part of our art consciousness.
To appreciate the level of comfort and familiarity the public has for
disrobed figures, consider the astounding recognizability of Michaelangelo’s
iconic David statue, which has been admired by art lovers for centuries.
Art scholar Jean Sorabella
summarizes, “Figures
with no clothes are peculiarly common in the art of the Western world. This
situation might seem perfectly natural when one considers how frequent the
state of undress is in everyday human life, from birth to the bath to the
boudoir."
However, despite
the ubiquity of the nude in art history, the subject is not without
controversy. The call for censorship of art exhibitions
featuring nudes still occurs frequently, even in parts of the world considered
to be culturally progressive. Cultural
historian John
Semonche decries Americas' "long history of discomfort with nudity and sex
and its portrayal on both canvas and in three dimensional forms". Further, nude depictions of women may be
criticized as inherently voyeuristic, as pointed out by the feminist artists
group Guerrilla Girls, who note the prevalence
of nude women on the walls of museums but the scarcity of female artists.
In the Bahamas, we believe there is an
appreciation for nudes that highlight the unique beauty of the human form,
completely at ease in a state of undress, as depicted in the “Disrobed”
exhibition.
