Pushing back against the pricks
'The Bodies Are Back' reconsiders the figure at Intersection for the Arts
Published 02/18/2010
by Sura Wood
http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=general&article=112Is satiric cheesecake still cheesecake? Is titillating imagery of voluptuous flesh bursting forth from peek-a-boo bras and garter belts pornographic even when it's delivered with a generous dose of irony and savage humor? This thorny dilemma, replete with alleged assaults on the gender of superheroes (more on that later), caught a 30ish, classically trained, feminist artist named Margaret Harrison in its clutches and threatened to derail her promising career. In 1971, the police shut down her first solo exhibition the day after it opened in London; a show that, in Harrison's words, "tread the fine line between irony, sexuality, transgender, transvestism, power, masculinity, objectification and exploitation."
