Life Drawing – Experience the Living Forms Art at Art Ventures Gallery
In terms of artistic endeavor and creative expression, we live in a period of tremendous freedom and innovation.
My take on the living form is that there is no ideal. Nor do most individuals really pursue this notion. Since ancient people began rendering images of themselves, artists have created a myriad of male and female forms that infuse our culture with visual vernacular.
Biology teaches us that in any particular culture, we look for symmetry regardless of whether a body is short, tall, fat, or thin. Humans are attracted to individuals who manifest an anatomical symmetry / balance. Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is an icon of the Greek conception of symmetry - an abstract ideal of a mathematical balance, and has its roots in the geometry invented by the Greeks.
Today there is a vast and fascinating diversity of gender identities. The construct of male and female is being redefined as we speak.
Art Ventures is presenting life-drawing classes with a male model. Adhering to the standard of an ideal masculine form only limits the conversation.
Arnold Schwarzenegger might be a bodybuilding hero was governor of California, but who is the most powerful man in the world?
Throughout history, starting with the Greeks, the muscular form has been displayed in the most spectacular, revered and refined exhibits. Michelangelo's David was not a crude farm boy without brains. Silicon Valley represents a new culture, and we get to see what will emerge in terms of gender.
We are living in a time when many traditional cultural forms like our cuisine and music are fusing and giving birth to entirely original images. In terms of artistic endeavor and creative expression, we live in a period of tremendous freedom and innovation.
Exploring the multiplicity of living forms is replete with opportunity for an artist. A vast new area of expression that merges into the conversation about identity, sexuality, love, passion and what it means to be fully human...is up for grabs in a way that it has never been in history. The artist has a larger canvass in which to explore these yet unintended and imagined forms.
What we are trying to engage has less to do with the body as an object and more to do with how the person expresses himself through his body.
It is always better to ask a question rather than define the outcome. Let the artist and viewer decide what is beautiful about man and maleness?
