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Venus in the „Looking-Glass‟: Para-Classicism and the Trans-Body in the Works of Igor Mitoraj and Marc Quinn

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Venus in the „Looking-Glass‟: Para-Classicism and the Trans-Body in the Works of Igor Mitoraj and Marc Quinn This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ Venus in the „Looking-glass‟: para-classicism and the trans-body in the works of Igor Mitoraj and Marc Quinn by Barbara Sliwinska Doctoral Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University September 2010 © by Barbara Sliwinska 2010 Article I. CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY This is to certify that I am responsible for the work submitted in this thesis, that the original work is my own except as specified in acknowledgments or in footnotes, and that neither the thesis nor the original work contained therein has been submitted to this or any other institution for a degree. ……………………………………………. ( Signed ) ……………………………………………. ( Date) II Abstract This thesis offers a theoretical investigation into concepts of beauty, the sculptured body and myths of Venus and Medusa, primarily through the works of Igor Mitoraj and Marc Quinn. These themes are transformed and inverted in the ‗Looking- glass‘ towards the ‗trans-body‘, which is fragmented, sometimes monstrous, grotesque or ugly, but it is still complete. Resonating with Eros, it advocates a new trans-sexuality and establishes a concept of ‗new desire‘, both of which question the legitimacy and limits of the concept of gender in relation to the body. This thesis proposes looking at the body beyond straightforward associations with a particular sex, incorporating approaches beyond art historical and art critical perspectives. Overall, the argument is informed by three particular concepts - paratopisms, paralogisms and parachronisms - drawn from the writings of Jean-François Lyotard. Jean Baudrillard‘s idea of the ‗trans‘ and ‗swallowing the mirror‘ provides another focus for the thesis. As such, this work is an attempt to go through to the ‗other side of the mirror‘ with respect to topos – here, aesthetics and narratives; logos – here, beauty and ugliness; and chronos – in this research, the ‗new desire‘. Through a detailed analysis of a number of case‐studies I focus on the transformation of the trope of the ‗classical‘ into ‗para-classical‘; the implosion of Venus into Medusa, beauty into ugliness, perfection into imperfection and ability into disability; and, finally, the metamorphosis of the sculptured body in the mirror. The figure of Venus is utilised in order to scrutinise the modifications and metamorphoses, both internal and external, of the body in relation to the fragment and the classical Greco-Roman ideal. The thesis aims to bring to the study of sculpture a deconstruction of the body through readings on gender, subjectivities and the gaze of the other. It focuses on the female body, represented by the figure of Venus, which is modified and appropriated according to patriarchal order, but also, as it relies on Hélène Cixous‘s ‗Medusa laugh‘, it generates a new perspective in seeing the body – as a hybrid; a metamorphosing construct, able to transform beyond and within corporeality. Viewing the body as an entity in a constant state of flux, shifting identities and gender, this study proposes this new concept - ‗trans-body‘ – as a response to the current hyperreal simulated model of sexuality, and stimulates (and simulates) a change of focus in opticality – towards illusions and trans-vesting myths. III Contents Acknowledgements p.IX List of illustrations p.X Introduction. Through the „Looking-glass‟ and „after the p. 2 orgy‟ Research questions p. 3 Research context p. 4 Methodology p. 8 Sculpture p. 12 Igor Mitoraj p. 15 Marc Quinn p. 23 Tropes p. 28 Beauty – Venus/Medusa implosion p. 29 Mirror p. 31 The classical p. 31 Myths p. 35 The ‗new desire‘ p. 35 ‗Para-‗ p. 36 Synopsis p. 37 Chapter 1 The postmodern framework, beauty and the p. 42 body Introduction p. 42 The postmodern framework p. 42 Historical time and a cycle p. 42 Spatio-temporal breakdown p. 43 Postmodern anamnesis p. 45 Postmodern anamorphosis p. 47 Postmodern parody and pastiche p. 48 Beauty p. 50 Location of beauty p. 51 The placebo effect of beauty p. 52 Beautocracy p. 52 The context for beauty in this research p. 53 Significance of beauty p. 55 Twentieth century beauty p. 57 The body in sculpture p. 64 Context for this research p. 64 Focus on the human figure p. 66 The human body in various contexts p. 66 Conclusion p. 69 Chapter 2 Paratopisms p. 71 IV Migration of aesthetics and narratives Section 1 Introduction p. 71 Section 2 Transaestheticisation and migration of narratives p. 73 ‗Art […] raises everything to aesthetic banality, becoming transaesthetic.‘ ‗Transaestheticization‘ p. 74 Beauty versus aesthetics p. 75 Definition of aesthetics p. 76 History of aesthetics p. 79 Antiquity p. 79 Modern Aesthetics p. 82 Aesthetics after the 1960s p. 86 ‗Post-aesthetics‘ p. 88 ‗Aesthetics beyond aesthetics‘ p. 89 Summary p. 92 Section 3 Migration and Eternal Returns p. 94 ‗Art is going through a sort of a travelling shot of its own history, a more or less authentic or artificial resurrection of all its past forms.' The metaphor of travel p. 94 ‗Eternal Return‘ p. 95 Migration of myths p. 97 ‗Para-classicism‘ p. 99 Summary p. 102 Section 4 Simulation and the copy of the classical p. 103 ‗It‘s [simulation] the illness of aestheticization.‘ ‗Simulation‘ p. 103 Contemporary replicas of the past p. 106 Summary p. 108 Section 5 Quotation, looking back and politics of the gaze p. 109 ‗Art has become quotation, reappropriation, and gives the impression of an indefinite resuscitation of its own forms.‘ Quotation p. 109 ‗The presentness of the past‘ p. 112 The politics of vision p. 113 The male gaze p. 116 Summary p. 118 Section 6 Conclusion p. 119 Chapter 3 Paralogisms p. 121 Migration of beauty and ugliness Section 1 Introduction p. 121 V Section 2 Transformations of the body p. 124 Contemporary ‗autopsy‘ of the body p. 124 The malleable body p. 126 Summary p. 128 Section 3 Impaired classical beauty p. 129 ‗One evening I sat Beauty down on my knees. - And I found her bitter. - And I insulted her.‘ Ability and disability p. 129 Venus‘s myth p. 133 Venus as an ironic signifier p. 134 The politicised montage of the fragment p. 135 The change in representing Venus p. 137 Summary p. 138 Section 4 The dialectic of ubiquitous beauty p. 140 ‗Medusa is a poignant double […] the disabled woman to Venus‘ perfect body.‘ The disabled body p. 140 Medusa – the signifier of duality p. 142 The incomplete complete body p. 143 The grotesque body p. 145 ‗Corps morcelé‘ p. 147 Medusa as an assemblage p. 148 Section 4.1 The Sublime p. 150 The eighteenth century sublimity p. 150 The postmodern sublime p. 151 Post-sublime p. 152 Section 4.2 Ugliness p. 154 The ugly p. 154 Ugliness versus? beauty p. 155 The unbearable pleasure of ugliness p. 156 Section 4.3 The logic of lack p. 158 Anorexic logic p. 158 Philosophical anorexia p. 159 Gender schizophrenia p. 161 Logic of fragmentation p. 161 Un-gendered body p. 162 Summary p. 164 Section 5 Eros and Thanatos - perfection versus imperfection p. 165 ‗It [the perfect illusion] is a ―recreative‖ realist, mimetic, hologrammatic illusion.‘ Modernist rejection of the female p. 166 The female as an ornament and the ‗male anorexia‘ p. 167 The re-turn of ornament p. 169 Eros as the embodiment of cohesion, perfection and ‗the classical‘ p. 169 The representational exterior of the subject p. 170 Quasimodo p. 171 Prosthetic beauty p. 173 VI Camp as a cocktail of Venus and Medusa in Eros p. 173 Perfection p. 174 Wax beauty p. 176 Summary p. 177 Section 6 Conclusion p. 179 Chapter 4 Parachronisms p. 181 Migration of the „new desire‟ Section 1 Introduction p. 181 Section 2 Classical perfection of postmodern eroticised seduction p. 183 ‗We are moving even closer to a high definition, in other words to the useless perfection of images.‘ Seduction in historical perspective p. 183 The liberated desire p. 185 The neoclassical perfection p. 186 The classical as make up p. 188 Summary p. 191 Section 3 Eros „sexless body‟ blurring genders in Icarus and Icaria p. 192 Icaria and Icarus p. 192 ‗Merger type sexuality‘ p. 194 Androgynous Eros p. 195 The ‗androgyne‘ p. 197 Binary oppositions p. 199 Fashionised bodily costumes p. 201 Summary p. 202 Section 4 „Trans-sexulity‟ or transvestism p. 205 ‗Micro-scenarios of unsexuality and transsexuality in all its forms. Resolution of sex into its disjecta membra, its part-objects, its fractal elements.‘ Trans-sexuality and ‗theatricalised politics‘ p. 205 The commodified body in trans p. 208 ‗Trans-beauty‘ and ‗trans-body‘ p. 209 Hyper-real body p. 212 Summary p. 214 Section 5 Narcissus - the swallowed mirror and trompe l’oeil p. 215 ‗It is as if things had swallowed their mirror‘ Narcissus p. 216 ‗I will not be your mirror‘ p. 217 Narcissism p. 218 The mirror stage p. 219 Feminine confiscation of narcissism p. 221 ‗Swallowing the mirror‘ p. 222 Summary p. 224 VII Section 6 Reversibility of form – „postnarcissism‟ and the „new p. 225 desire‟ ‗I wouldn‘t call classical art figurative. It was like a desire for seduction – it was a song.‘ Politicised classicism p. 225 ‗Post-narcissism‘ p. 227 ‗Para-classical‘ completeness p. 227 Functional eroticism p. 229 Dissolution of myths p. 230 The ‗new desire‘ p. 231 Summary p. 233 Section 7 Conclusion p. 235 Thesis conclusion. The dream of a new seduction p.
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