The Naked Truth About the Nude in Art

When you get down to the bare facts, there’s no genre of art older than that of the nude. The bare human figure—male and female, but more often female—commands attention as much as it makes us turn away in modesty or, worse, shame. The duality of that “truth” of the nude as well as our reaction to it is the slippery subject of Being Nude: The Skin of Images by Jean-Luc Nancy and Federico Ferrari (translated by Anne O’Byrne and Carlie Anglemire). Nancy and Ferrari argue for “something true right at the skin, skin as truth” as the exposing of flesh “reveals is that there is nothing to be revealed, or that there is nothing other than revelation itself, the revealing and what can be revealed, both at once.” At times a hard philosophical road to slog, Being Nude gives you a multidimensional, multimedia, multigenerational musing on the nude that may not lay all the facts perfectly bare, but will leave you looking at and thinking about the nude in a different way than ever before. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Naked Truth About the Nude in Art."

Jasper Johns and Art History in the Making

“Regrets, I’ve had a few,” Frank Sinatra warbled in “My Way,” before adding wistfully, “But, then again, too few to mention.” Sinatra sang that song at the end of a long, successful career as a titan turning back and surveying the long road behind him and the shorter one ahead. A similar kind of retrospection turns the Museum of Modern Art in New York City’s new exhibition Jasper Johns: Regrets, which runs through September 1, 2014, into a survey of art history in the making. Not only is the show about canonical artist Jasper Johns’ latest additions to art history, but also about the history of making art, of taking different raw materials and media and entering the process of creating art. For a relatively small show on a tightly targeted subject, Jasper Johns: Regrets hits the mark beautifully and raises a triumphant flag signaling that art and art history aren’t dead just yet. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Jasper Johns and Art History in the Making."

Is Glenn Beck’s Obama in Pee Pee the Last Shot Fired of the ‘80s and ‘90s Culture Wars?

The sight of a grown man trying to stuff a bobbing plastic doll into a jar of what he claims to be his own urine is a sad thing, but when that man is right-wing commentator Glenn Beck making a strange comment about freedom of speech combined with a hateful symbolic act against the President, it’s not surprising. Beck tweely titles his artwork Obama in Pee Pee (shown above), but let’s call it what it is—Piss Obama, a 35-years-too-late reply to Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, one of the landmark works of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s “culture wars” pitting conservatives versus liberals in the battle for artistic expression. Beck hopes to piss off liberals with this act, but what he might have actually achieved is firing the last shot (squirt?) of the culture wars, proving perhaps once and for all that those cruel days are over. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Glenn Beck’s Obama in Pee Pee the Last Shot Fired of the ‘80s and ‘90s CultureWars?"

Why the Olympics Is About Sports and Art

For everyone who loves their art and their sports, the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, and the accompanying London 2012 Cultural Olympiad seem a match made in heaven. Alas, for Jonathan Jones of The Guardian, it’s a match made in hell. In a blog post titled, “The Olympics is about sport not art, so culture needs to drop out of the race,” Jones asks, “Why? What's all it for? And how does it connect in any interesting way with the Olympics, or use that sporting even to further art?” Believing that “When the best the Cultural Olympiad has to offer is bouncy castles and BMWs, you know it's time for art to take a back seat,” Jones dismisses the entire enterprise. But, at least from my seat across the Atlantic, I think there’s some value in the marriage of sports and the arts and that Jones isn’t playing fair in his judgment of his home country’s attempt to play host to the world. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why the Olympics Is About Sports and Art."

How Lucian Freud Painted Himself by Painting Others

“Nobody is representing anything,” Lucian Freud once said of all art, including his own. “Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it’s a chair.” Elsewhere, the grandson of Sigmund Freud announced that “My work is purely autobiographical. It is about myself and my surroundings. It is an attempt at a record.” When Lucian Freud died in July 2011, the current National Portrait Gallery, London, England, exhibition Lucian Freud Portraits was already in the works. Along with the exhibition catalog and a smaller companion book, art historians are now trying to discern what Freud recorded about his inner self as he recorded the outward appearance of friends and family over the course of seven decades. Some felt that the portraiture as a relevant modern genre died with Freud, but this exhibition and these books make the case that the true value of these paintings—for him then and us today—lives on. Please come over to Picture This at  Big Think to read more of "How Lucian Freud Painted Himself by PaintingOthers."

[Image: Lucian Freud. Reflection (Self-portrait), 1985 (detail). Copyright: Private Collection, Ireland, The Lucian Freud Archive. Photo: Courtesy Lucian Freud Archive.]

 
[Many thanks to the National Portrait Gallery, London, England, for the image above and other press materials from the exhibition Lucian Freud Portraits, which runs through May 27, 2012. Many thanks to Yale University Press for providing me with review copies of Lucian Freud Portraits by Sarah Howgate with Michael Auping and John Richardson and Lucian Freud Painting People, introduction by Martin Gayford, appreciation by David Hockney, and foreword by Sarah Howgate.]