When the Body Is an Art Gallery - NY Times 11/19

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: Have you guys seen the article in the NY : Times Weekend edition under fine arts and : leisure entitled "When the Body Is an Art : Gallery?".....pretty kewl spread including a : big color closeup of two hands reaching out : with beautiful red hennaed designs. Just : gorgeous. Here's a snipit of the article, I : apologize if it's a little OT, but most of us I : think would be interested in what the article : has to say about art in general...... : MyST : http://mehndimyst.freeservers.com : "Body Art Marks of Identity opens tomorrow : at the American Museum of Natural History, : is a transparent effort on the part of a family- : style institution to heat up its image and pull : in a fresh audience, one that probably : couldn't care less about large, extinct : reptiles with tiny brains. : The theme is personal adornment of the : most ultimate kind, usually applied directly : onto or into the skin. The exhibition -smart, : extremely entertaining and assembled in : record time - coincides with the current : fashion-as-art vogue. The packed : installation offers just enough bare, : multicultural flesh to inspire rubbernecking : without actually being an adults-only affair. : Most interesting, is how the show, organized : by Enid Schildkrout, brings art and : anthropology seamlessly together. Not so : long ago, one would have been hard put to : find a major museum exhibition in which : Greek vases and African sculptures, ethnic : postcards and Indian miniatures, Victorian : corsets, and Amazonian nose plugs got : equal time. But they get it here, no problem, : and all the interest of looking at what people : do to their bodies and why. : The why is important. Critical questioning : histories of fashion are few, but "Body Art", : with its cultural breadth and anthropological : bias, at least suggests directions they might : take. : The show acknowledges fashion's universe : feel-good appeal, but also its tendency to : reinforce heirarachies of superirority and : inferiority along lines of calss, wealth and : power. It celebrates fashion's formal : inventiveness , but also sees it as a : language of ideas and ideals in which : attitudes - towards life, sex, age, death - as : well as cosmological speculations are : expressed. : Fortunately, the exhibition approaches such : abstract concepts entirely through concrete : examples. The opening section focuses on : techniques for bodily alteration. Certain : methods, like the use of makeup or shaping : through pressure, are more or less external. : Effects of the latter are documented in a : 19th-century painting of a Pacific Northwest : Indian woman with a flattened forehead, and : again in a 1913 field photograph of an : African chief with a gound and dramatically : elongated skull topped by a stylish woven : hat. : In many cultures transitional stages of life : are visually advertised; scars are made : during initiations in Africa and asupicious : patterns painted in henna on the hands of : an Indian bride are examples included here. : And ocasionally the body is given a new, : different, transcendent identity through art, : as in the case of the Selknam Indians in : Tierra del Fuego seen in haunting turn-of- : the-century photographs, who transformed : themselves into spirits with all-over body : paint."

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