Beauty...?: Feminine Masculinity and Feminist Minimalism

Susan Bordo begins "Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body" (a chapter from her book, The Male Body) stating that she is "putting classical art to the side for the moment" (168). While this is most likely a reference to something she discussed in a previous chapter, I, having not read the other parts of her book, was struck by this opening clause in a different way than she likely intended. For sure, let's not talk about classical art; instead let's consider something more contemporary.

Below you see two images. On the left, a sculpture by artist Michelle Lopez; on the right, a male model found on Google image search. Do you see a similarity between these pictures?

 

Hold onto that for a moment. Let's dig into Bordo's writing a bit:

. . . my gaze is invited by something "feminine" about the young man. . . . This model's languid body posture, his averted look are classic signals, both in the "natural" and the "cultural" world, of willing subordination. He offers himself nonaggressively to the gaze of another. Hip cocked in the snaky S-curve usually reserved for depictions of women's bodies, eyes downcast but not closed, he gives off a sultry, moody, subtle but undeniably seductive consciousness of his erotic allure. (171)

What she says here adequately describes our model above as well. And she continues: "For many men, both gay and straight, to be so passively dependent on the gaze of another person for one's sense of self-worth is incompatible with being a real man" (172). This idea that a "real man" doesn't need to be seen by others to be valued brought me to thinking of minimalism, an artistic style with which we are all (probably) familiar, at least in a cursory way. How do I make this connection? Minimalism was/is characterized by the use of pared-down design elements, simple shapes and colors, geometric abstractions. When we look at a minimalist painting or sculpture, or listen to a minimalist symphony, we get the idea that there is not much going on. These works, in a sense, resist meaning and interpretation; take Yves Klein's word for it--"even in its presence," such work "does not exist."

Minimalist art is provocative because in a sense, there is nothing that we bring to it as viewers. It does not require our interpretive gaze; in fact it resists and challenges us in its stoicism. Minimalism shares this aesthetic ideal, this lack of a seductive "dynamic tension" (Bordo 171) with more traditional portrayals of masculinity. "Stiff, engorged Schwarzenegger bodies . . . seem to be surrogate penises--with nowhere to go and nothing to do but stand there . . ." (ibid). Just like the mono-/phallo-lithic minimalist artworks, traditional masculine beauty does not call us to come closer, but finds its value in its ability to stand alone.

      

Both of the images that we saw at the beginning of this post are responses to this kind of masculinist aesthetic. Michelle Lopez, a post-minimalist sculptor,

explores the contested yet generative place where Minimalism and Feminism converge, diverge, and ultimately reunite. The languages she employs—material, form, and space—seek to “corrupt minimalism,” by making “macho sculpture feminine.” (see link)

The sculpture, Blue Angel, mirrors the male model with his leaning, seductive, feminine pose; each image modifies the minimal/masculine ideal of straight, simple, geometric unity through "bending" and "folding," and so that aesthetic rigidity remains but seems to "wilt," "melt," and "crease" into ambiguity/androgyny.

What does this mean? Bordo thinks that these ideals are positive, that it is incorrect to think of these models as 'sex objects' because "it seems to suggest that what these representations offer is a body that is inert, depersonalized, flat, a mere thing" (186). But I think that Lopez's sculpture is, if we accept the connections to a post-masculine aesthetic, a strong counterargument. Blue Angel, though provocative, feminized, dynamically tense in its composition, ultimately does not offer much beyond its critique of minimalism. In the same way, our male model is provocative simply because he is not rigidly masculine. As responses to monolithic masculinity, they in a sense remain characterized by their dialectical appropriation thereof, and this foundering is, I think, the tragic beauty that makes Lopez's sculpture so compelling. The creased metal sculpture and the muscled male model both lean passively, and though they call us to look closer, there is nothing to be found beyond the surface. They are, in the end, nothing but objects.