The Body (Renaissance Society, 1991)

5.75 x 8.25 in
212 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0941548236
Softcover, perfect bound

Artists: Andrews Lawrence, M.W. Burns, Ken Feingold, Orshi Drozdik, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Barbara Hammer, Doug Hammett, Gary Hill, Wendy Jacob, Hilja Keading, Liz Larner, Patti Martori, Paul McCarthy, NASA Ames Research Center, Laurie Palmer, Aimee Rankin, Sarah Seager, David Sedaris, Shelly Silver, Kiki Smith, Sean Smith, Erika Suderburg, Therese Svoboda, Marianne Trench, and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto.

"Throughout the 1980s a semi-private manner of artmaking has toiled beneath the vociferous excesses, theoretical extrapolations, and politics of neo-Expressionism, Media Consciousness, and Art Activism, and is quietly obsessed with investigating human physicality and chemistry through precisely literal and symbolic materials, objects, and situations. These sensuous transformations, proliferations, and amputations subtly and profoundly influence one’s understanding of the human body, its physical and chemical strength and fragility. These artworks are neither explicitly sexual nor aesthetically formal, opting instead for insinuated sexuality and appropriated formality. Sexuality is experienced through glass, wax, lead, saliva, rubber, and wood, and their receptiveness to further humanization through manual processes, use, erosion, and age. Formailty is experienced through theatrical and/or narrative juxtapositions of mannequins, bottle racks, medical equipment and display cases within interior architectural spaces.