Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

All

10 / 15

Previous Next

The nude is one of the most time-honored subjects in Western art, but for centuries it was used to depict unnamed generic figures or mythological subjects rather than specific individuals. Since the turn of the twentieth century, however, artists have increasingly challenged this convention by producing frank, highly particular nudes, often with the sitters identified in the works’ titles. From Joan Semmel’s monumental self-portrait in bed with a lover to John Coplans’s unflinching document of his aging body, most of these works subvert expectations about how a nude should look, pose, and engage the viewer. Photographs by Katy Grannan, and Catherine Opie, among others, unabashedly question cultural assumptions about gender, beauty, and power, giving voice to groups and individuals who are often marginalized by both the traditions of portraiture and mainstream American culture. By transforming nudity from a classical ideal into something decidedly personal, contemporary, and idiosyncratic, these artists compel us to confront the complex and often contradictory feelings elicited by the human body: fascination and repulsion, pleasure and shame, freedom and inhibition.

Below is a selection of works from Body Bared.

Back

8 / 13

Previous Next

This work is part of Katy Grannan’s The Westerns, a series of photographs exploring the myth of California as a land of limitless sunshine and opportunity. After moving to San Francisco, Grannan sought out individuals who had come to the city to reinvent themselves and asked these “new pioneers,” as she called them, to model for her. Nicole, the subject of this image, modeled for Grannan for nearly three years in an array of costumes and guises. Here Nicole appears vulnerable, even wounded, the ghostly doubling of her body suggesting physical and emotional breakdown.

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 383 works

Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Body Bared

10

NICOLE, SUNNYDALE AVENUE (II), 2006

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

On the Hour

Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Body Bared

10

NICOLE, SUNNYDALE AVENUE (II), 2006

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection