The nude female form: What is it about a woman’s body that is so provocative? From the voluptuous to the obese, nude women have attracted attention for centuries.
British rock band Queen knew this when they caused a publicity uproar over a naked female bicycle race to promote their 1978 single, “Fat Bottomed Girls.” More recently, art patrons proved their admiration of big women when a portrait of a nude and obese Sue Tilley sold for a record-setting $33.6 million.
Duke too, is hoping to contribute to the staggering oeuvre of paeans to the female figure by lining the walls of the corridor leading into Perkins Library with photographs of naked, overweight Hungarian and Turkish female bathers. Jennette Williams, the award-winning photographer of the collection asks, “What makes for beauty in women? How do we as a society perceive women as they age?”
Unfortunately, there’s a big difference between the success of Queen’s big girls and Duke’s naked bathers. If Williams intends to portray images of beauty and challenge traditional standards of them, then the location of her collection is disastrous because in the Perkins corridor, her photographs achieve neither goal.
Rubenesque and uncompromising, Williams’s nude bathers face thousands of unsympathetic college-aged students on a daily basis. These aren’t the art-house museum types either. Since the hallway is designed to facilitate transit between buildings, the majority of students pass by on their way to the library, and at 3 a.m. in the morning, whether focused or frazzled, most students are not open to pondering alternative illustrations of the human form.
Unfortunately, an art display is often only as good as the audience that sees and responds to it. The art extends a message, but the viewer must be receptive to receiving it. The Perkins corridor is an awful place for viewers to respond to Williams’ art because by the time they have recovered from the initial shock of seeing one of her graphic images, they will have passed through the front doors.
Indeed, instead of drawing admiration, the Perkins nude bathers cause shock and confusion. When I asked passing students to describe the display, they used the words “awkward,” “interesting” and “random.” “It’s a very public area,” senior Deepak Srinivasan said. “We should be warned.” Freshman Winston Neville told me he was “grossed out” as he walked through the building. Other students called the display “weird” and one viewer even said that it made her want to lose weight.
Moreover, student viewers seem to misinterpret Williams’s desire to challenge how we perceive older, less conventionally attractive women. “If pictures of plump old women taking bubble baths is Duke’s latest statement against effortless perfection, I’m lost,” senior Emily Poplawski said. Several other people who walk through the hallway joke that the women are “ugly” and “fat.” Senior Amy Ehman wondered “Is [the collection] reinforcing flaws or highlighting alternative styles of beauty?”
It appears then, that instead of eliciting appreciation for beauty, the bathers trigger revulsion and instead of challenging stereotypes, they solidify them.
Truth is, it’s going to take a lot more than progressive displays of art to challenge our campus norms of beauty. As much as we try to behave like mature adults, our capacity to accept and appreciate art is not as highly evolved as that of the Center for Documentary Studies, which selected Williams’ photographs for the award-winning display. Judging from the reactions her photos are receiving, one wonders if this “reward” is actually more of a punishment.
Save your art from our judgment, Jennette, and take your beauties to the Nasher Museum, the Center for Documentary Studies, the Franklin Center or even the gallery in the Bryan Center, where people actively go to appreciate art. Let individuals who have opened their minds to personally advocate for and diffuse your work through their social circles instead of subjecting it to ridicule by people caught off guard.
In the future, Perkins Library needs to make a better match between the content of its galleries and its audience. They need to remember that art is enjoyable when the audience can understand and relate to the artist’s intended goal. That sole purpose may be to provide visual pleasure, but it can also challenge, reflect, stimulate, inspire and catalyze social change. When viewers aren’t in the mindset to connect to the artwork, the art fails to deliver its message. Or, let students, who use the library most, take ownership of what they find on their walls. Let us choose what art we’d like to see, and chances are, we’ll be better able to gain from it.
Courtney Han is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Friday.
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