posted May 20, 2000 08:29 PM            

Picturing the Modern Amazon
30 March 2000 � 25 June 2000
First Floor Gallery and Mezzanine

The first exhibition devoted to the representation of hyper-muscular and physically strong women in popular culture and contemporary art, Picturing the Modern Amazon touches on issues ranging from female pleasure to the dynamics of bodily and social power. The "modern amazon" is presented as a culture with a history, as a dazzling and transgressive current phenomenon, and as an avatar of the future.

The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, sculptures, comic books, and installations by over sixty artists including: Louise Bourgeois, Ren�e Cox, Nicole Eisenman, Oliver Herring, Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Mark, Herb Ritts, Alison Saar, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Spero, and many others.

Picturing the Modern Amazon consists of three separate sections: historical images, contemporary works, and comics. The historical component includes over 150 images, from 1783 to the present, of women performing feats of strength in circuses or in vaudeville acts, as well as documentation on modern women�s bodybuilding.

While several works in the contemporary section depict hyper-muscular women who are pumped, greased, and flexing, other works offer more subtle messages. Kathleen Gilje�s painting Comtesse d�Haussonville, Restored (1996) borrows two seductive representations of women, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres� 1845 portrait Comtesse d�Haussonville and one of Robert Mapplethorpe�s portraits of bodybuilder Lisa Lyon. Gilje�s painting depicts the traditionally-appointed 19th century lady whose reflection in the mirror returns a muscular, bustier-clad vixen in a veil, a suggestion of the way the tender comtesse may truly perceive herself.

In the third section, comics that focus on muscular female characters and superheroes represent a half-century of work. Works such as R. Crumb�s Frightened Little Man in the Land of the Vulture Goddesses (1998) illustrate the simultaneous fear and desire that huge, solid, and strong female bodies provoke. Comic illustrators and artists include: Jennifer Camper, Diane DiMassa, Roberta Gregory, and John Howard.

Picturing the Modern Amazon is organized by Laurie Fierstein, a bodybuilder and social activist; Joanna Frueh, an art historian and performance artist; and Judith Stein, a curator and critic.

An accompanying catalogue, published by Rizzoli International, includes lavish illustrations, scholarly essays, nonfiction writings, and five interviews with female bodybuilders. Events accompanying the exhibition include a performance by female bodybuilders and symposia featuring artists, bodybuilders, scholars, historians, and the exhibition co-curators.

Picturing the Modern Amazon is made possible by a generous grant from the Peter Norton Family Foundation. Altoids, the media sponsor of the exhibition, is proud to support Picturing the Modern Amazon as part of an ongoing commitment to generate meaningful exposure for contemporary artists through sponsorship and the Altoids Curiously Strong Collection.

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Yours in sport,

George

George Spellwin
Research Director