American artist Karen LaMonte used transparent white glass poured in a cast to create her piece Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery. It is a one of the pieces of the glass dress series she has been working with in her career since 2000 which includes other life-size dress figures. Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery was created in 2009 using the additive process of casting the glass. The glass has created cascading ripples throughout the piece resembling a Greco-Roman inspired dress draped over a woman’s body, but the woman herself is absent from the dress. It is hollow, implying that a figure once took residence inside. Some light shines through the milky glass, creating spots that glow in the light. The texture of the glass appears
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Tiziano Vecelli’s oil painting Venus of Urbiino shows a woman lying on her side in the nude, a similar position to the pose LaMonte’s Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery is in. Though their poses are similar, the two works have a very different meaning. The Venus figure is traditionally a figure of great beauty, and one that is meant to be gazed upon for a male’s pleasure. By giving the name of Venus to a woman, it becomes socially acceptable to stare at a nude women because she is no longer a woman; she is the goddess of beauty and demands to be looked upon. LaMonte combats this outdated system of thinking by clothing the figure and removing the figure itself. No longer can the woman be the subject of the male gaze because she has left her presence within the garment. The ways in which the cloth draped over her are still present, but she herself is missing. Some will still view this piece as a sexual being in the same ways they view a Venus, but they are not looking at the true nature of LaMonte’s …show more content…
The figure Venus is an anonymous figure for the viewer to look upon catered to male desires. The reductive process of chipping away at marble used by many classical sculptors can be seen as a reduction of womens’ identities in this time. LaMonte takes a different approach by leaving emptiness where a woman is presumed to be. They key difference here is that she is not reducing the woman from the piece and forming her into an idealized image because she uses the additive process of casting. She is suggesting that the representation of women in art has historically been as an object. This piece takes this idea one step further by having the object stand in for the woman herself. Alternatively, the absence of the figure is also the ultimate idealized figure; By leaving the responsibility of creating the figure to the viewer, they are free to imagine their own perfect figure in place of emptiness. One can still read the contours of her body and see how the fabric is draped over her, but her flesh is composed of empty space for one to fill with their own sexual fantasies if they chose. The choice is left to the viewer whether to view the work as liberation for the woman who has abandoned it or to fetishise the emptiness left
Tiziano Vecelli’s oil painting Venus of Urbiino shows a woman lying on her side in the nude, a similar position to the pose LaMonte’s Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery is in. Though their poses are similar, the two works have a very different meaning. The Venus figure is traditionally a figure of great beauty, and one that is meant to be gazed upon for a male’s pleasure. By giving the name of Venus to a woman, it becomes socially acceptable to stare at a nude women because she is no longer a woman; she is the goddess of beauty and demands to be looked upon. LaMonte combats this outdated system of thinking by clothing the figure and removing the figure itself. No longer can the woman be the subject of the male gaze because she has left her presence within the garment. The ways in which the cloth draped over her are still present, but she herself is missing. Some will still view this piece as a sexual being in the same ways they view a Venus, but they are not looking at the true nature of LaMonte’s …show more content…
The figure Venus is an anonymous figure for the viewer to look upon catered to male desires. The reductive process of chipping away at marble used by many classical sculptors can be seen as a reduction of womens’ identities in this time. LaMonte takes a different approach by leaving emptiness where a woman is presumed to be. They key difference here is that she is not reducing the woman from the piece and forming her into an idealized image because she uses the additive process of casting. She is suggesting that the representation of women in art has historically been as an object. This piece takes this idea one step further by having the object stand in for the woman herself. Alternatively, the absence of the figure is also the ultimate idealized figure; By leaving the responsibility of creating the figure to the viewer, they are free to imagine their own perfect figure in place of emptiness. One can still read the contours of her body and see how the fabric is draped over her, but her flesh is composed of empty space for one to fill with their own sexual fantasies if they chose. The choice is left to the viewer whether to view the work as liberation for the woman who has abandoned it or to fetishise the emptiness left