The beauty of a woman is only skin-deep. If men could only see what is beneath the flesh and penetrate below the surface with eyes like the Boetian lynx, they would be nauseated just to look at women, for all this feminine charm is nothing but phlegm, blood, humours, gall. Just imagine all that is hidden in nostrils, throat and stomach… We are all repelled to touch vomit and ordure even with our fingertips. How then can we ever want to embrace what is merely a sack of rottenness?
–Abbot Odo of Cluny, 10th Century
My preceding post put me in the mind of this quote and makes me thinking deeply once more about the Churches patriarchal power games with the female body. Seeing copious icons of the Virgin Mary in Firenze alongside the sexed up female portrayal in Italian media I have become tantalized by the polarized roles that women play in this Catholic country.
I recall my first night in Italy, watching Miss Italia 2010 on the little hostel television. I watched it with the same intrigue as Levi-Strauss studying a Hopi dance; noting down the performers alien movements and curious costumes. But unlike the Hopi snake dance the Miss Italia contestants’ actions were hollow, they went through the motions of seduction dance but their soul seemed disconnected. While living in Italy I’ve found the same awkward sexed up women selling mobile phones, as performers assistants, as magazine show co-hosts – bounding onto the stage, jiggling their breasts and bum before introducing the next part of the program.
But despite this playful tease of flesh that one could read as ‘girl power’, the women here seem to have little autonomy over their own bodies. My flat mate over breakfast tells me that women here in Italy are forbidden to artificially inseminate.
I returned to The Specola to shoot another roll of film, do some more sketching, and although going to primarily study the taxidermy I always find myself standing longest in one of the rooms right at the end of the maze of stuffed birds and pickled snakes. This penultimate room holds the work of modeler Clemente Susini who, amongst other anatomical wax works, created three women in various stages of dissection.
Strange however, considering the subject, there is very little cold and clinical about the models. These women are not presented in a manner making them ideal tools for teaching about human physiology. Instead they refuse the lie still, playfully toying with a braid, coyly gesturing to their breasts and pilose pubis. Their heads thrown back on to silk sheets as their back arches, flushed cheeks, pert nipples; these women’s eyes, cast forever in wax seem set half shut in the last moments of orgasmic languor rather than the last moments of life.
I wonder if I have been studying a room of life sized 17th Century pornography. Under the guise of anatomical studies, these ‘three graces’ do seem to want to satisfy more than a lust to learn about medical matters.
I updated my website this morning with some of the work I’ve created since graduating. And you know what? I really like seeing the paintings displayed there. Adding them to my online portfolio has really solidified them for me; they feel like a legitimate part of my practice now. It makes me wonder, I hadn’t have won this scholarship opportunity, would I have given myself the time and funds to start painting? Perhaps my initiation into painting stands as my biggest reward from this experience so far.
My website displays my work larger than here on a-n so take a look. www.rcusworth.com
Finally my hunt for contemporary art in Firenze has met with success. Charles Avery’s Onomatopoeia Part 1 has opened at the EX3 gallery. I’ve been to the space a few times before while I’ve been living in Firenze but preceding this exhibition I’ve found the space more interesting than the art that was displayed inside it. Don’t you find that working in the art world? Spaces become fascinating, empty shop fronts and office spaces intrigue and promise opportunity.
Seeing a well-curated interesting exhibition has really ignited my desire to show work as well as create, and it was interesting chatting to him about starting out as an artist. We talked about making the decision where to live as an artist, and though he felt strongly that London was the only valid choice for an artist I have no doubt Glasgow is the right place for me to live after this residency is over, it may be a bit chillier and wetter than Firenze, but it will satisfy my need for contemporary art in an art scene I know can feel apart of.
Here in Firenze my photographic projects exploring the antiques markets, natura morta and metamorphosis are developing positively. And though I felt scatty working on seperate projects I am beginning to feel like things are beginning to coalesce.
Nods to certain notions seem to be happening between the different projects, and seemingly separate under goings are beginning to weave together.
