Exploring the artistic nude in the news and in the studio.

Archive for April, 2010

friday nude quotes

“Since nudes in all countries and centuries possess standard equipment, it’s difficult to say precisely why the pictures at the Brooklyn Museum right now are so thoroughly American.”

Emily Genauer


Medium:Vinyl


Opening Night: Friday 21st May from 6-10pm
DJs on the night: Neil Hume, Westernsynthetics, Savage Gee, Size 13
To be officially opened by Maynard – ABC radio, former ABC TV host and founder of Madd Club

Exhibition Runs: 21st of May – 12th of Jun 2010
Hardware Gallery
263 Enmore Road, Enmore
Sydney, Australia

Jennie Rosenbaum is exhibiting for the first time in Sydney at Hardware Gallery, a commercial Gallery in Enmore. The exhibition features artworks on vinyl records in a dizzying array of mixed media combined with a vinyl record market and celebration of music. http://bit.ly/cBGh5U


Nude of the Week – Rapsody, Final Work

Rhapsody - a new nude by Jennie Rosenbaum

Rapsody

Oils on canvas and 12″ vinyl record

My piece for Medium:Vinyl at Hardware Gallery in Sydney is finally completed and shipped off ready for the exhibition in May. this was a piece that I had very strongly in my mind. sometimes, however, that isn’t enough. it took days of posing, lighting and rendering to get this piece right. sometimes, it’s really hard to realize the concept that is stuck in your mind. once I got to the painting stage, however, it was a breeze. sometimes taking the extra planning time really makes the final piece flow perfectly. I zoned into the painting of this piece perfectly each time.

Medium:Vinyl is on from 21st of May 2010 – 12th of Jun 2010 at Hardware Gallery 263 Enmore Road, Enmore NSW. more details soon.


friday nude quotes

“The undressed is vulgar – the nude is pure”

Robert Green Ingersoll


Live Nude Art at MoMA raising hands and…

moma102813--350x600.jpg
Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present”

(NEWSER) – It’s not only spectators who are getting frisky at a Museum of Modern Art show featuring live nude models. One male on display in the Manhattan exhibit was so aroused by the experience that he was asked to leave, reports Page Six. The exhibit by artist Marina Abramovic features a nude couple standing in a doorway so that visitors have to squeeze between them. Some of the 38 nude models have complained that museumgoers are getting touchy-feely—but this is the first model asked to leave.[From Lusty MOMA Nude is Booted From Museum ]

I admit that at first I didn’t understand the point of this exhibit. it appeared to me to be structured to deliberately make the patrons and the models very uncomfortable. I found the idea of something that could put the life models potentially in harms way or make them very uncomfortable to be disturbing. In addition, most of the publicity center around the issues with the models being harassed, and one of the male models being fired for getting an erection, there has been very little written about the work itself.

Upon further research I found out more about the nature of the exhibit itself..

The exhibit features 38 performers in rotating shifts of eight facing each other at a doorway or lying under a skeleton or posing in other pieces, mostly in the nude. …

All the performers went through a mini-boot camp at the artist’s Hudson Valley hideaway in a bid to prepare for anything. For five days, they led a monk-like existence — fasting, not speaking and not reading — while doing exercises designed to help them develop self-control, including bathing in an icy pond, walking in slow motion and counting grains of rice, said MoMA’s Erica Papernik, whose job is to make the performers’ rotations as smooth as possible. A clothed Abramovic is also on display in the exhibit. Visitors can sit across from her. Elke Luyten, a 35-year-old performer, called the show a welcome test of self-discipline, even if she occasionally cries while lying under the skeleton. “I never feel awkward. I never feel strange,” she said. “Even when teenagers laugh, I never feel laughed at. Because Marina is there on the second floor, you feel you’re part of something bigger.”

[From Naked models at MoMA "The Artist is Present" exhibit are getting groped - NYPOST.com]

the artwork appears to be just as much about the discipline and discomfort of the models as the reactions of the patrons. as a living artwork it encompasses the emotions of the players into the piece. I didn’t understand what was artistic about getting people to stand in doorways, but the creation of the work began with the bootcamp and was clearly very well thought out. I find myself very sorry that I won’t get to experience it. the artist being a part of the exhibit, but clothed is an interesting touch.
as far as the difficulties go, I still find that uncomfortable to deal with. the idea that the models have to cope with being groped and be unable to react sends shivers down my spine. I am glad that they have been prepared and that there are such security measures in place. the model being ejected for getting an erection is a different matter. I realize it changes the nature of the rating as it were, but it’s a natural and uncontrollable reflex and I don’t believe the model should have been held responsible and fired, just allowed a brief respite until everything was back under control.


Nude of the Week – Rhapsody Render 2

record1d

Rhapsody Render 2

Daz Studio Render

What a difference a couple of days make! sometimes you have to go back to the beginning. I also revisited the concept by using a record as a backdrop for my render from the beginning. it was completely different, but somehow just perfect. sometimes inspiration comes like a half remembered dream, and it needs a lot of coaxing to get it just right.


friday nude quotes

“I’d like to see a nude opera, because when they hit those high notes, I bet you can really see it in those genitals”

Jack Handy


nude art causes mass suicide scare in NYC


Oops.. this is a really interesting concept, and it probably says a lot about the way people interact. it’s nice to see people caring and reporting their concerns for others, but one also has to wonder if this project was that well thought out. the artist Anthony Gormley intended to play with the city and people’s perceptions, but I wonder if he anticipated this sort of issue. I know if I were him I would have been prepared for the usual controversies, but to create a mass suicide scare, well, it certainly drew attention to his art!


Nude art for the blind

2905060.bin

Tactile Mind by Toronto artist Lisa Murphy

Ms. Murphy, a photographer who has been working with nude images for years, says the artwork breaks new ground. While editions of Playboy magazine have been produced in Braille, Ms. Murphy believes her work is the first that allows blind people to explore naked images through their sense of touch.

“There are a couple of racy phrases in there, but not too much,” she said.

The images are first developed as traditional photographs; Ms. Murphy convinces her friends to pose as models. She then enlarges the images and builds them up with clay. She melts individual plastic pages on top, one at a time, with a Thermoform machine. The pages conforms to the image’s shape.

Each book takes a few hours to assemble and bind. Each is approximately 15 centimetres (six inches) thick. Ms. Murphy began producing her work in full colour last fall.

“It’s a very expensive book. It’s certainly functional, but it’s also an art object,” said Cory Silverberg, a co-owner of Come As You Are, a sex shop in Toronto that has been carrying Tactile Minds for a year.

“When you run your fingers over it, you really feel texture, you feel what’s rough and smooth, you feel the ridges of someone’s well-chiselled chest, for example.”

Ms. Murphy learned how to make tactile graphics while volunteering for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, for whom she produced educational diagrams of animals. She later decided to apply the skills to her own art projects.

[From Artist creates book of nudes for the blind]

This is an interesting concept, I know a couple of blind artists and I think it’s wonderful that something is being created with the blind in mind, more art should be accessible in different ways.
I am disappointed however by the way this article seems to portray the book as porn for the blind. something handcrafted that has taken that long to produce is an art object. there are a selection of nude styles, some are more explicit than others but it is sad that the article feels it needs to dwell on that aspect. it’s also sad that the book seems to be taken up mostly by sex stores, although the artist may not agree with me there- if they sell there who am I to judge?
I’d love to get my hands (heh) on a copy and see how it’s done. it sounds like an experience of nude art, something that doesnt always happen with paintings.


Nude of the Week – Rhapsody render 1

Burlesque Render 09c

Rhapsody render 1

Daz Studio Render

this was my first attempt at trying to realize my sketch. it took hours of posing, lighting and rendering and postwork in Photoshop and I just wasn’t inspired. the pose wasn’t right, she wasn’t seated in the circle, she looked like she was floating, and I just couldn’t get the look on the record to work. so I took it back to square one again and tried a different pose.


friday nude quotes

“The beauty and wonder of Fall
gives in to Winter’s shrill call.

After the leaves have burst in colored flare
their trees slowly become skeletal and bare.

Few in nature can find immunity
from this most unpleasent form of nudity.”

Copyright 2009, Will Bartley


Nude of the Week – Rhapsody, initial sketch

Burlesque Sketch 09a

Rhapsody, initial sketch

Watercolor and Pencil on Paper

The concept for my submission to Medium:Vinyl came to me while I was working on my Sketchbook Library Sketches. I knew I wanted to continue in the same theme, and I could see the concept very clearly, I just couldn’t realize the pose. this sketch is even rougher than usual as it was more a chance for me to get the idea down, rather than the actual pose. I knew I wanted the figure seated in the record label and a round shape to the pose with volume lighting stretching down on an angle and an extended leg. I knew I wanted parts of the raw record showing and a cone spotlight effect. it was a very strong concept in my mind, but without the key pose.

Enter Daz, and many hours of rendering to the rescue!


friday nude quotes

The fear that seeing naked people in some way harms children is not supported, however, by academic research. The small handful of studies on this topic in psychology and sociology have shown, instead, that children reared in an atmosphere containing family social nudity may benefit from the practice. If this is true, then proposed laws outlawing either social nudity in the home or children’s participation at naturist (or nudist) settings are unjustified.

Mark Storey in Children, Social Nudity and Scholarly Study


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