Figure,

1970

Figure represents an idealized masculine form held hostage by taut zippers and tightened straps, presenting the viewer with a grotesquely animalistic epidermal technology. Grossman theatricalizes desire and violence, simultaneously suggesting war, brutality, and domination as well as notions of vulnerability and beauty. Figure performs pictorially as a portrait of both victim and victimizer; the man’s heavily articulated gun-wolf head contrasts with the elegant lines that form his classically rendered lower torso. Grossman’s sensitivity to gender and sexuality, honed by her exposure to second wave feminism, is key to understanding her early experimental sculptures and drawings. "Whenever I wanted to say something specific, personal to the effect that I am a woman," she stated in 1975, "I would use a woman’s image if the work were figurative. It seemed natural. But If I wanted to say something in general, I would use a man. It’s as if man was our society. Yet I don’t feel that the male forms are outside of me."