Here’s an appropriate use of the figure in advertising! The FX show Nip Tuck advertising campaigns have consistently used the figure in classic poses, but with  one that captures the reality of one of the United State’s largest businesses; plastic surgery. The billion dollar industry operates under the promise of allowing men and women the opportunity to aesthetically reverse time. The shows advertisements give us glimpses into that mentality, showing it from a first person view, but critiquing the industry in the process. The images used in the show’s advertisements build around the social commentary of plastic surgery but stand as commercialized uses of the figure, as well as being reflective of timeless posing.

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In one advertisement the figure dramatically contours her body accentuating the thinness of her waist. Her weight is supported primarily on the operating table as she balances herself on the thighs of her doctors. Another shows an angelic figure, fallen in the desert, her wings cut from her body, suggesting the once angels desire to sacrifice her gift of wings in exchange for proximity to achieving the ultimate standard in human beauty. The third image was taken by David LaChapelle, an artist once found in the pages of Vogue, now producing pieces that could be considered commercially inspired. In this photo we see a the surgeons reproducing Venus de Milo on a live human form. The live model wears swimwear with wavy blond hair and over-sized sunglasses, looking as if removed from a Florida beach. The superficial elements of the subject as an individual are hinted on, but not overtly emphasized.

An angel having just removed her wings through plastic surgery in an effort to achieve the human standard of beauty

Taken by David LaChapelle this photo shows a woman trying to emulate the Venus de Milo in an effort to achieve a greater degree of beauty.

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Other modern users of the nude form are harder to distinguish in terms of what their objectives are. One such advertiser is The United Colors of Benetton who frequently challenges our conceptions of race and social boundaries. More often than not Benetton seems to generate critiques that their advertising is more shock value but the idea that Benetton might be  conveying a social commentary coded in metaphor above our comprehension levels remains.  One of their ads features a Caucasian newborn ready to be nursed by am African American woman, her head out of view. Another features a wall of multiple portraits of men and women’s genitals; imagery that would be more likely to be seen in a gallery than with a commercial advertier. One thing is clear through viewing Benetton’s advertising; that there is a purpose for its symbolic value, even if that reason is strictly to generate sales.

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In our series The Figure in Advertising, we pay attention to those who are currently using the figure in new and interesting ways. With so many interesting uses of the figure occurring in advertising today TGN felt it necessary to take a look at uses of the figure in the recent past.

One of the first to come to mind is Dove in their Real Beauty Campaign. A direct attack on the distorted perceptions of beauty in advertising, Dove’s approach was to use the realism of everyday people to create art over advertising. They photographed and advertised numerous women fully nude, showing what they believed ‘real’ women to look like.  Dove also launched a video, showing the process of remodeling that a person goes through on a photo-shoot. They then created a billboard for foundation makeup ‘Fasel,’ being an anagram for ‘False.’ The end product helped to show how the divinity of the human form stretches further than what we see on magazine pages.

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Dove's signature ad from their first "Real Beauty" campaign

One of Dove's groundbreaking choices of model

One of the most memorable uses of the figure in advertising is by the organization People for the Ethical Treatent of Animals (PETA) with its “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign. Still continued today, PETA recruited prominent social figures such as Christy Turlington and Alicia Silverstone to pose nude under a banner of the campaign slogan.  The dramatic reality of the human form in its most basic state created strong opposition to fur and caught national attention. In this ad, Christy Turlington, who is often photographed in the nude in fashion magazines, uses her body to advance an ethical cause against the use of animal fur, her preference for “naked” over wearing fur in the quotation above her warmly lit torso. Over a twenty year period “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” was able to help reduce the number of fur manufacturer numbers in the US to under 250, about a quarter of their former numbers.

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Christy Turlington's classic pose both honors the figure and raises awareness for PETA

Best known for work that nearly defined the “Pin-up”, Alberto Vargas is recognized for depicting and perfecting the image of female sexuality in the first half of the 20th century. Having worked with Esquire and more famously Playboy magazines, some would be quick to write Vargas off as a soft pornographer, and he’s never expressed any shame in that. However, from the perspective of TheGreatNude, Vargas was an artist dedicated to the figure, and produced a body of work that embodied the meaning of female sexuality and in effect became standards of feminine desire for a generation of American men.

In the early 1920′s, Vargas solidified his career as a successful artist working with the Ziegfeld Follies, and later working as a regular illustrator for Esquire magazine, where he created the infamous “Varga Girl”, a stylistic. While restricted in his ability to paint fully nude figures for these publications, Vargas was able to convey a comparable essence, stylistically depicting his women as playful, coy, and full of energy, further solidifying and advancing the concept of the Pin-Up as an icon of sexual freedom.

In the 1950’s Playboy was the master of men’s literature, delivering well researched articles simultaneously with artistic and sexual content. For decades, Vargas’ art works had a premier spot following the magazine’s premier feature: The Centerfold. It was this venue that gave Vargas the freedom to paint his strongest nudes at the peak of his career, and he produced many of his most iconographic works during this time.

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Vargas' iconic image of Diana, shown below with Esquire's clothed and edited rendition

Legacy Nude 4, Exuberance

Legacy Nude 5, Red Fire

This being the closing week of the summer show NAKED!; the figurative arts show TheGreatNude.tv wanted to take the opportunity to make sure this show was not missed. The Paul Kasmin Gallery, located in Chelsea, is showing a series of figurative works spanning a time period of over four hundred years. Although finding a commonality between the classic and ultra-modern works might seem unlikely, the gallery accomplishes it with a range of fun, serious and inspirational works.

The gallery is located at 239 10th Avenue New York, NY. Hurry to see this show though; it closes September 19th.

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Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson Le Sommeil d'Endymion, oil on canvas 14 7/8'' x 18 1/4''

David Lachapelle, Nature's Naked Loveliness, digital color c-print 97'' x 72''

Duncan Hannah, Crazy Horse Revue Dancer, oil on canvas 18'' x 14''

Mel Ramos, Rita Ritz, oil on linen 39 1/4'' x 28 3/4''

Theodoor van Thulden, Time Revealing Truth, oil on canvas 58 3/4'' x 42 1/2''

Alice Neel: Self-Portrait, 1980

This being the 40th anniversary of the “Summer of Love”, and of the concert known as Woodstock, The Great Nude felt the need to highlight the nudes of Alice Neel, one of the most independent figurative artists of the twentieth century, and an artist who’s work at this time (1960′s) reflected some of the social changes rippling through our culture.

By the end of the 1960′s Neel’s work as an artist was well known and her acceptance by the critics assured. Her career was reaching it’s crescendo, with museums and galleries lining up to exhibit her paintings. But it’s important to consider that Alice Neel started out as a woman in a man’s world under emotionally difficult if not tragic circumstances. And being a female artist who felt compelled to explore the boundaries of gender and politics, she shocked many of her peers and broke taboos with her direct and honest depictions of the nude. Her early life (and her career as an artist) was filled with many obstacles and difficulties.

We saw some of her work here in New York this summer in an exhibit at the Zwirner & Wirth Gallery. The paintings Neel produced around the 1930’s were dark and moody, a reflection of her experiences. Neel’s work at this time clashed against the social mores of this period, even by New York standards. Her paintings were often drawn from her personal experiences, where Neel’s nervous breakdown, suicidal tendencies, and subsequent internment in a mental asylum were the context from which her work as an artist began.

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Well Baby Clinic. 1928

Ethel Ashton. 1930

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Like The Spice Gallery
Brooklyn, NY
June 2009
Review by: Scott Goodwillie

Reuben Negrón‘s recent exhibit of watercolors at Like the Spice Gallery is a strong display of figurative work seen in a modern, fresh light. Negron’s use of the medium is masterful, and he uses figures to creat intimate scenes filled with a warm humanity.

For a young artist, Negrón may have found a genre he enjoys and portrays well. I look forward to seeing how else he challenges our voyeuristic nature in the future.

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I recently saw a small exhibit of delicate male nudes by of Paul P that were holding their own down in Chelsea, NYC earlier this year. Canadian born  of Paul P (1977) lives in Paris and is gaining attention as an artist. He has done numerous exhibitions since his first in 2001. Paul P’s works make excellent use of his media, blurring the line between charcoal, pencil sketch and water color, conveying movement and strong color to subject relationships throughout his pieces in the process.

Untitled-2007

A byproduct of the late twentieth century and prominent in the gay art community, his work is characteristic of those genres. Many of his figures, generally nude males of disputable age, are posed in overtly sexually posed that are dark and somber in nature. The claustrophobic undertone, seen through facial expression and body language, creates an overall sense of oppression. His ‘Untitled’ shown below suggests two persons in a sexual positioning – but no one looks happy here. I often look for universal qualities of the human condition in figurative works, but Paul P’s work seems aimed directly at/to the Gay Community.

There are of course romantic elements in Paul P’s work. However, even where Love is concerned, the artist seems to be catering to a cultural fascination; at the very least showing a strong attention to the young male form, beautiful even though the use of the figure seems politicized in the case of Paul P.

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Kathleen Gilje has been toying with Western Art’s use of the figure for most of her career. Gilje’s recent body of work, which we saw here in New York at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, is one of the most cohesive statements of her career.

Entitled “48 Portraits: Sargent’s Women, Restored”, this large collection of paintings created by Gilje features 48 women who were themselves the subjects of the American impressionist painter John Singer Sargent. Sargent had been commissioned to paint these women during his illustrious career as a portrait painter for the wealthy industrialists and upper class of 19th century America. Gilje has stripped the women bare – literally – in an effort to pull these women out of historical anonymity. What’s more, she has painted these portraits in the style of Sargent and matched the master’s evolving personal style over the course of his career – itself quite a feat.

Kathleen Gilje's 48 Portraits - Sargent's Women, Restored

Gilje has been mining Western Art for new meaning for much of her career, capturing the subtle qualities of Old Masters through her own skilled brushwork, and then turning these dusty classics into modern statements about sexual politics and modern zeitgeist. In the case of 48 Portraits: Sargent’s Women Restored, she’s turned classic portraiture on its side, delivering the same critical analysis of our culture that those viewing the original works – in their respective time periods – would have done. Looking back at some of Gilje’s work, many of the classics that she’s taken on seem not to have been altered in context from the original, and those pieces still stand in admirable proximity to them. But when the context of those pieces has been changed, there is always a reason.

Kathleen Gilje: Portrait of Thomas Hammer, Restored

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