The Figure Abstracted

From the exaggerated proportions of ancient fertility goddesses to the exacting mathematical ratios of the Classical Greek canon, the human body has long been used to represent cultural values and intellectual systems in art. However, as abstract painting rose in prominence following World War II, representations of the figure largely disappeared from avant-garde painting, and the presence of the body was subsumed by the physicality of gestural brushstrokes. This spring an installation of works from the Museum’s collections, together with a group of spectacular loans from private collections, considers the ways in which artists of the 1970s and 1980s returned to the body as a site and subject of artistic practice. Instead of using the figure to represent an individual, as in the tradition of portraiture, they treated the body as an abstraction, a physical and symbolic territory upon which regulatory systems are enacted and corporal, as well as psychic, conditions are manifest. In addressing the social and political structures that define gender, race, and sexuality, these artists transformed the place of figuration in artistic expression, leaving an influential legacy for artists today. 

To hear from the Nick Cave and see the Soundsuit in action, see:

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s8/nick-cave-in-chicago-segment/