On Collaboration

Aristotle said “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, “it is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” said Darwin and “I believe that collaboration is the solution and may bring us the harmony which would liberate art from its boundless confusion”, added Hans Arp.

            Collaboration (between individuals in particular as opposed to collaboration between artist and audience) is increasingly becoming a popular way of operating in the contemporary art world, perhaps challenging the image of the artist as; ‘heroic’ ‘not dependent’ ‘solitary figure’ in a continuous ‘inner struggle’ or perhaps asking for a redefinition of artistic practice which in turn asks for a redefinition of art and culture, pointing out the necessity of going ‘beyond the making of exhibitions’ or perhaps it's a natural need/necessary consequence of hybridization of cultures associated with globalization. Whatever the case may be, such practice raises questions about authorship, authenticity and most importantly the artists’ relationship to each other, their work and their audience.

            One such example is a recent collaboration between Damon Kowarsky and Atif Khan (both strictly print makers), titled ‘Hybrid’, exhibited at Rohtas2, from Nov 20th to dec 1st, 2012. Kowarsky, who hails from Austrailia is not a stranger to this country, he has visited Pakistan three or four times before, has displayed his work in Lahore and Islamabad and has conducted print making workshops at art schools in Lahore and Karachi. Khan on the other hand has been trained as a printmaker at National college of Arts and has taught at his alma mater since, while taking a few years off to work in UK.

            The work itself wasn’t any different from what we are normally used to encountering at galleries, most of which is sheer repetition and unconsidered political and cultural mysticism that tiers one’s eyes and brain with its uninspiring symbolism. Fortunately this body of work spared me the enervating monotony of beards, burqas and flags but did present itself with guns, drones, geometric patterns and the Mughal kings. But of course, art is not created in a vacuum, and is undoubtedly a product of the socio-political environment in which artists work. As I try to deal with my lack of response to the works in the show, I have (for a change) decided to not brood over the unsettling debates about looking, seeing, experiencing, pleasure, beauty, judgements, subjectivity, universality and function, but direct my attention towards the notion of ‘collaboration’ which is a rare instance in our part of the world.

            The need for constructivist and dialogical methods of production has become ever more important in times of deep felt uncertainities like today’s. The blurring of the boundaries between artistic disciplines and various vocations associated with arts (such as; curator, critic, historian, e.t.c), and Walter Benjamin’s idea of the ‘author as producer’, among other postmodern discussions, is a call for active engagement with social politics rather than responding from a removed, observational vantage point. Although ‘author’ and ‘producer’ both ‘make’, ‘create’, ‘give birth to’, e.t.c but perhaps Benjamin like Nato Thompson (American curator) finds some conditions by which the two differ considerably from each other. Thompson is of the opinion that part of being a producer means, letting go of individual conceit, which is perhaps unthinkable for an author/artist. A producer’s responsibilities are perhaps more managerial and the widely accepted belief in art as self-expression, makes the idea of such an artist sound suspicious. To Thompson, strategies of resistance require a forgoing of individual genius, when revolutionary power lies in the autonomy of the collective idea, not in the autonomy of an individual. And this empowerment perhaps comes from the notion of responsibility and accountability (to one another).

            In the light of Thompson’s views, the history of collaborative art practice and my own 6 years long collaboration with Hurmat ul Ain, and other project based collaborations with artists, writers and curators, the questions of subjectivity, originality and authorship are not so relevant anymore but why and how this method of production is employed, is certainly a question worth asking, the answer to which, is slightly absent in the work itself. Besides a corporatist ideology that promotes networking, the ‘need’ to collaborate as a method of generating, mediating and reflecting experience and knowledge, should be more genuine. What it needs to operate on is; common goals and a common vision that guides their work through negotiations, as stakeholders per se. What letting go of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, brings forth is only the strengths of both the individuals in a singular voice as ‘us’. But despite the fact that these personal narratives, though portrayed as autobiographical are not actually solipsistic, but neither are they in ‘unison’. The individuality of both the artists, within a singular work, is kept intact. The documentary like entries of khan’s very local landscape often identified by Kowarsky’s very foreign vantage point, in the form of titles, is worth mentioning. However, questions about style and technique remain more relevant than anything else, which perhaps is an evidence of naivety. 

Art that breathes!

In Pakistan, the invitation to witness a work of ‘Performance Art’ or ‘Live Art’ at a local art gallery, is a rare one. Art that involves elements of time, space, the performer's body and a relationship between performer and audience, outside of the “performing arts” practices, such as; theater, music and dance, is being increasingly employed by many artists and art students in the country, but perhaps the unavailability of spaces for artists and viewers to engage with this kind of art has restricted the use of performative practice to photography and video. Color, a gallery that launched itself only last month in Lahore, very bravely opened its doors to host Ferwa Ibrahim’s performance ‘Hiding under water’ along with a video titled, ‘orientation’. Brave; because firstly it's a medium which after 50 or so years since its introduction is still new in our part of the world and may take some more time to trickle down into the public consciousness as ‘Art’, let alone ‘high art’ and secondly it is very unusual for a gallery to showcase only two works. Usually the exhibition spaces are not ‘curated’ but walls are simply used to hang works on.

As I give you an account of my selective perspective on  ‘an’ enactment of art that I witnessed in flesh, Peggy Phelan’s (following) words knock in my head:

“Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance”.

Since I’m working from memory, the events leading to the performance and the time in-between watching it and writing about it (which i have tried to minimize as much as I could) adds up to the subjectivity of my account, which may have nothing to do with the actual performance or I might have overlooked other ways of seeing it. I wonder if the same idea  can be applied when reviewing works of art in other mediums, such as; paint, print or objects?

Upon entering the main gate of Color gallery, housed in a residential building, I’m greeted by the doorkeeper who directs me to enter from the courtyard (at the back) instead of the gallery enterance (where the performance was to be held). In the courtyard, people chatted against the backdrop of a video, projected on the wall (approx 2’ x 3’), surrounded by a monotonous rhythmical humming that fades in and out of the hum of conversations in the outdoor space. The projection displays a hand mapping a black line, drawn with a thick black marker on the grey chips floor. I use the word mapping, because there is no clear distinction between drawing, feeling/running her fingers over or erasing of the line by rubbing. Perhaps the action signals the permeability/impermeability of boundaries or perhaps a method of self hypnosis, a sort of a meditative exercise that aims to synchronize the mind, the body and the soul in order to escape that partial/compromised self-awareness towards wholeness or a free flow of energy.  This may sound like what your yoga instructor tells you, but when he/she verbalizes it, it sounds unoriginal and stereotypical but when physically practiced, it usually makes sense. That may not be a very flattering example but I certainly felt that Ibrahim’s work reflects a similar inability of language to communicate, thus making speech almost futile and presenting us with a visual qua sensory experience. However, the positioning, the framing and the scale of the projection were a bit unsettling, why it was so small in comparison to the wall? why was it not in the center? why was it at the extreme end of the wall, almost cropped by the sharp edge? why was it not on the floor? The floor might have provided me with a more accurate experience or a more interactive encounter.

The announcement for the performance was made and this one was the third and the last of the three performances that were carried out almost every 45 mins for the opening night. A bunch of us walked into the gallery; an intimate (small) rectangular space. We waited, noticing the little details of the space, such as; the halo on the laminated floor, made by the two spot lights above, the camera (to document the performance), the silence – Ibrahim walks into the space wearing blue jeans and a black top, holding a large black cloth ruffled next to her body – she goes to the center of the room and starts to lay the cloth on the floor, she sits squatted cross-legged upon the cloth and invites everyone else to join her, only a couple do, she asks again, in fact makes eye contact with each one of her audiences, insisting/demanding that they sit down. Whether one actively participated or not, the piece articulates the dividing line between observance and engagement, challenging the traditional divisions between art and audience, exploring what art is/can do for the fulfillment of the artist’s impulse to express/communicate. Here the role of the viewer changes from a removed observer to an engaged participant. I, who wanted to be an observer rather than a participant, had to surrender. She begins chanting a low humming sound almost like a meditative breathing exercise that I also silently practiced while sitting there, noticing that it was increasingly difficult to catch up with Ibrahim’s notes, as she would take in only half a breath for an even exhalation and the droning sound lingered on for a while.  With each breath the humming gets louder and louder, changing the peaceful into more agitated, and then upon covering her mouth with her hands (that were gradually drawing nearer with every note during the course of the performance) the sound morphs itself into convulsive sobs, and then wailing moans and then low whimpering that gradually faded away and she gasps for air, pulling her hands away, while also pulling the cloth away from beneath our bottoms. I think the timing was perfect, that is particularly the moment when I started to feel a little claustrophobic myself. All performance-based art deals with aspects of control, the acquisition of an audience and subjecting them to the artist's "control" which involves another aspect of body art - endurance; both hers and mine, so a part of me wanted the performance to linger on, just a bit longer. Perhaps it is the precision that made me a little uneasy. I wished some of it was undecided, a little more spontaneous - like pushing the work so you find yourself in a territory beyond the one you know.

As I sat there afterwards, the transitory nature of the form her body held for us to watch and experience and vanished, I nodded at the thought of Phelan’s words “performance becomes itself only through disappearance”. The performance lingered on and echoed in the humming sound of the video outside.

This kind of expression which aims to understand and interpret subjective experience through representational acts is perhaps an investigation of the subject of embodiment and the embodiment of subjectivity, that is more compelling than theater, it’s visceral nature puts one in direct contact with thought and feeling. Interrogating this subjective dimension of ‘being’ through materializing the intersections between (Kantian) inner-self and the outer-self, Ibrahim indulges herself in a self-scrutiny for the sake of authenticating experience and existence as a means towards self awareness or rather an attempt to liberate the self from traditionally bound situations. Expanding on modes of self representation where autobiography and social conditions are inextricably bound together in an unending reformulation of identity, she continually questions and re-identifies her self.

welcome to Lahore

A feast for the eyes:

The Allegory of Painting, painted in the 17^th Century, is one of Vermeer’s most intriguing works of art, and is also the title of Sussane Husemann’s exhibition, at Rohtas 2 (June 2^nd - ). Vermeer’s women, engaged in their routine tasks, enclosed in household environs, are the subject of Husemann’s paintings, embodying Barthes theories of appropriation or perhaps I should say, embodying the practice of Painting itself. It makes one think about the practice of appropriation and simulation which occurs within the production of all art and production of ‘newness’ under the weight/power of pre-existing masterpieces. As Barthes writes that no author creates something new and unique. Instead, every produced thing is a recycled regurgitation of that which preceded it. Some of her paintings also make use of verbal means of expression in the form of hand-written text (borrowed or original), forcing the viewer to construct meaning of their own, thereby actively participating in the process of appropriation.

Husemann’s images don’t speak of Vermeer as much as they address his models, and relies heavily on the stories narrated throughout history and brings to mind the films (particularly ‘Girl with the pearl Earring’) and books that have provided us with the history/story of Vermeer’s models and speaks of the relationship between the fictionalized representation of art/artists versus the art historical context - the relationship between documentary and drama.

Her unruly application of paint is a fascinating component of the work and successful in capturing maximum amount of information with minimum brushwork, conveying emotion, enthusiasm and force. This immediacy and movement introduced by her bold brushwork and varied use of color, sort of animates these otherwise motionless women and very subtly asserts Vermeer’s (and her own) interest in the play of light. Such application, more than anything else, makes me think of the artist’s encounter with the medium of painting, the evidence of which hangs on the gallery walls before me. The evidence of a dialogue/encounter with Vermeer, with paint and canvas, with beauty, with the noble goal of fulfillment, and most of all a dialogue about ‘the art of painting’. These spatterings of vibrant colors and forms, onto the surface of pre-used cartons (with peculiar shapes and folds) is almost accidental in appearance or composed rather naturally, reflect the reality of that experience/encounter, in a way which enables me to recognize it as extremely ‘genuine’. And that is rare; it is not too often when one experiences such moments; the pleasure of enjoying a painting (both; the object and the act of painting), of enjoying looking/viewing. The work (perhaps) comprises not an idea but a commitment, so fundamental, without which this body of work is unimaginable.

 A simple and beautiful display of love and passion, and that is all what art sometimes needs!

‘to do’ and ‘to be’:

To become an artist, one doesn’t necessarily have to go to an art school, in fact the untrained artists work with purer, more raw and more authentic creative impulses, driven by passion alone. Nevertheless, there is the confidence and validation you gain from holding a degree that proclaims you an artist, but does art need that testimony? Iqbal Geoffrey certainly doesn’t. To come across a noncommercial self-taught artist, particularly in Pakistan, who hasn’t had any formal art training, is a rare encounter. Traditionally such neuve innovators are located ‘outside’ the periphery of the art-circle but unlike other outsider artists, Geoffrey enjoys a great deal of appreciation and remuneration from the western art world, if not at home, and is recognized as an unparalleled phenomenon in the modern art world by British and American art critics. Though, his work is not entirely uninfluenced by artistic norms.

Geoffrey, a lawyer by profession as well as an artist, is quite a unique character, whose off-canvas activities are perhaps far more interesting than his on-canvas performance. Famous for suing people left and right and burning his finalized pieces without ever exhibiting them, to name only two examples of his uncompromising nature.

Punctuated with question marks, his antics and his work, both, are acts of rejection; of traditional ideas about beautiful and appropriate, of institutional framework within which art is received and by which it is mediated, of conventional distinctions regarding what is and is not art, of accepted views about art and artists, of sanctity of genre conventions, of boundaries, of logic, of viewers’ expectations, of authorities and hierarchies, of definite meaning, of. . . . This total destruction of ideas that have any discipline, both intellectually and physically resembles the Dadaist sensibility, which naturally makes him an artistic rebel. His vision of art, both affirms and denies Art simultaneously, in a provocative yet playful manner and poses the question; “What is art?” without necessarily attempting to answer it.

Geoffrey, an avid collector of objects and mass media imagery, uses these trivial details from his everyday life and transforms these ordinary things into private possessions, into precious memorials, into surviving traces, into witnesses, that don’t particularly reveal anything extraordinary yet tell stories about their maker/collector. Or perhaps these non-original popular images represent ‘no-thing’, perhaps they are the essence of ‘no-thing-ness’, just as a white on white painting, from his exhibition, reads ‘Emptiness’. Perhaps questioning; the meaninglessness of modern existence, or the need for meaning in Art, or what it means to empty content out of painting. This simultaneous presence and absence (or presence through absence) depicting both nothingness and limitlessness, is an exciting union of opposites that is either producing a new kind of meaning or obliterating the need for meaning altogether.

His obscure landscapes pieced together with objects/images, freed from their original context and reassembled within anomalous compositions, represent the fragmented nature of the contemporary culture, or perhaps it demonstrates that they can never be truly freed from their original context. In one moment the very banality of the everyday qualifies as Art, while in the next moment this assortment of visuals is rendered insignificant, useless or dysfunctional, asking the viewer to shift back and forth between just looking and experiencing or understanding the process of interpretation. But for most part it draws the viewer’s attention towards the playful undecided process of making rather than the subject of the work. In this union of simplicity and ambiguity, these surrealist assemblages have more of a psychoanalytic rather than aesthetic function, redefining the concepts of authorship and ownership and (following the footsteps of Duchamp, who is said to have been an admirer of Geoffrey’s) re-contextualizing existing "readymade" objects/images as Art, bypassing literal perceptions, breaking narrative expectations, surprising the viewers and asking them to fill in the gaps.

What is most remarkable is his ability to speak his heart with a rather shameless confidence, when narrating the self. The gallery space, adorned with buntings arranged from wall to wall, reading ‘I am a fan of Iqbal Geoffrey and so was Leonardo da Vinci’ together with the paintings, drawings and collages (some dating as far back as the 60s), is an exhibition of unapologetic (masturbatory) narcissism, the kind that perhaps politicians practice during election campaigns, that is sort of like a self conscious performance. Richard Avedon in an essay ‘borrowed dogs’ has expanded on this link between performance and self-portraiture, expressing that autobiographical tellings, such as self-portraiture, are ‘extreme stylized behaviors complete with theatrical conventions while performing in a very self-conscious way -filled with flattery and lies, yet truthful - lies about who they were and truths about who they wanted to be’. Employing this performative nature of autobiography Geoffrey performs a portrait of himself that is preoccupied with questions of identity; art’s, artists’ and his own (and the blurring distinctions between the three). Ironically masked with innocence and laced with tongue in cheek humor, there is a dismissal of seriousness in the work yet a severity coupled with self-righteousness towards it aswell.

But whether this self-proclaimed fame refers to the ephemerality of fame in this age of information or if it is an inquiry into artistic empowerment or if it questions the myths about the artistic genius or if it suggests that the contemporary artist no longer has to make anything, he has become his own myth or if these are simply evidences of his awesomeness, in them, one can distinguish a man who believes in what he does. Such unquestionable belief that is beyond doubt doesn’t even need to be verified (even a lie told often enough becomes the truth). Isn’t this what all Art demands; a certain sense of unquestionable belief, devotion and submission.

The Sacred and the Profane:

“To be an artist, to live out a commitment to art, does this not also mean to be a practicing believer, a monk, to operate with the goal of giving new meaning to one’s own life and those of others? Does art know the answer to the question?”

Above is an excerpt from a quote (by an anonymous writer) printed on the announcement card of Amna Ilyas’s exhibition, Immediacy, displayed at Rohtas 2, Lahore, from 8^th to 19^th May 2012.

                  This absolute human pursuit to bring oneself in harmony with a “higher power/divine being” in order to achieve a higher level of consciousness, greater self-awareness through a discipline of silent contemplation, has been an inward struggle for man since the dawn of civilizations and for all Art in general. Some seek that comfort and consolation/solace in religion, while others devout themselves to other forms of spirituality. Believers and non-believers alike, are influenced by the concept of this ‘divine’ being, not as a philosophical conception apart from the everyday life, but as an experience that occurs in the midst of the everyday. Many artists through their art have tried to capture/represent the feeling of transcendence and the sublime, speaking of the divine through the language of art, but if I may take the liberty to speak of art as a noun then; art itself may be the ‘absolute’ (not as a blasphemous concept but in theory one can find exact parallels in the psychology of art and any belief system) since it demands a certain sense of unquestionable devotion/submission. In which, the slightest bit of doubt can cease spiritual excellence.

            Displayed in the darkened gallery, were two cubicles (approximately 6’ x 6’). One of them glowing and translucent; made of acrylic, covered with a pale sticker sheet on the inside, with long and narrow wound like scrapings that emit bright light that is enclosed inside, on the top of the structure was sitting a smoke machine, ejecting fog that smelled slightly burnt - the other; dark and opaque, made of plywood perhaps. Upon ‘circumambulating’ the spaces, the viewer realizes that the latter is enterable through a door on the back, going inside which, defies all sense of space. It feels much bigger on the inside, since you can’t see anything, as compared to the outside where you can make out some sense of its scale because of the light that emits from the other cubicle. The contradiction between the two spaces is that of ‘void’ and ‘mass’ perhaps, and instills in us, if only for an instant, the deepest possible kind of doubt about the object and our unconscious confidence in know-ability, faith, and logic. These philosophically charged geometrical spaces perhaps didn’t need such an overt statement that is printed on the invite. Wittgenstein was aware of this, "We should not try to communicate the incommunicable", he wrote, "That will be futile.  That which is unsaid in what we have said will manifest itself by its silence."

Immediacy, I feel, is a transitory moment of Ilyas’s self-reflection. Perhaps the viewer needed to be left in the realm of ‘pure’ experience, alone, for their moment of self-reflection.

Kahani ek Shehar ki

Farida Batool’s ‘Kahani ek Shehar ki”, displayed at Rohtas 2 gallery, Lahore (from April 8^th to 20^th), presents us with her walk through the city streets, told in a first person singular voice ‘I’, as well as a collective ‘we’ or ‘they’ at the same time. She is both the native Lahori and the wandering tourist, placing a certain sense of displacement that can be appreciated on multiple levels and interpreted from multiple perspectives. The use of lenticular technique for printing these documents relies upon the active participation of the viewer and enables the viewer to become a silent witness as well as a participant with Batool in her meanderings through these streets. The technique involves layering two or more images to form a single image that has the ability to change/move/morph as the image is viewed from different angles. The movement of her body across these landscapes relates easily to the viewer’s own movement where you don’t have to adjust or dissociate what your eye is seeing from what you know your body is doing, i.e; walking. By design, they literally move each viewer’s body making the viewing experience completely subjective, as we animate her images and she animates our bodies.

The technique recalls, what has adorned the covers of musical records, children books, greeting cards and commercial advertisements throughout the marketing and communication mix, for decades now. What it does is, elicit our sense of wonder or makes one consider the possibilities of acquisition of space; space that the mind and the body occupies. Perhaps a clever critique of the consumer culture, also, blurring any borders between mainstream art and low/popular art.

What Batool is above all conscious of is the dialectical relationship between ‘what’ is said and ‘how’ it is said, regarding the latter as constitutive of the former. Something all art strives to achieve. Her form and content allow an interweaving of open-ended socio-cultural, political, economic, personal and aesthetic meanings, and the only form that can do so is one in which the form itself is the content.

Her ghost like presence, appearing and disappearing against graffitied walls, littered side walks, security barriers, street vendors, security guards, state buildings, cars, tongas, rickshaws and men, might not be the complete representation of the city but certainly provides the viewer with all the necessary clues, rather covertly presenting us, the city streets as a space where civil protection potentially breaks down, especially for women, since there is a particular absence of women in these public spaces which may or may not be a conscious decision but nevertheless significant.

These accidental yet staged scenes, suggest fragments from a narrative loaded with gender and identity politics, continuance of documentary style photography’s critical capabilities in the twenty-first century and for art objects to connect the personal with public. The presence of the camera (not physical of course) also points at the limitations of the medium of photography in embodying such an experience.

The work at large provides a fine balance between the creative endeavour of the artist and the creative projection of emotion and feeling on the part of the viewer, which Barthe refers to as the punctum. He writes, “the punctum is what I add to the photo and which nonetheless is there already”.

THE LOOKING GLASS:

The widely accepted practice of women being the model and muse of male artists, has been a subject of much debate for most of the 20th century. However, women artists have used their work to disrupt this tradition and also the tradition of self-portraiture as a means for the male artist to assert ‘his’ identity, rarely have the women been presented as the subject of self-portraiture in the history of art.

Saira Sheikh’s Mirror Mirror on the Wall, an exhibition that opened last month at Rohtas 2 in Lahore, is a multi-layered project, creating a dialogue about the relationship between self-portraiture and mirror, perhaps casting doubt upon the seemingly similar characteristics between the two. The work is a radical departure from the conventions of art making in Pakistan, challenging, upsetting or perhaps reinforcing pre-conceived notions about art, for a bunch of reasons.

The gallery filled with drawings of the nude artist, is an investigation into the notion of ‘self-portraiture’, beyond the conventional portrait representation of the self. These unsigned drawings, sitting on easels or resting against the walls, are a combination of artist’s own rendition of the self in the mirror and drawings of six or seven other artists who were invited to the gallery a day before the opening of the show, where Sheikh modeled nude for a duration of six hours, as a living sculpture creating a hybrid of sculpture and performance. Performing the self-portrait is a way of coming into representation as both the subject and the object and like all performance-based art, it deals with aspects of control, the acquisition of an audience and subjecting them to the artist's "control" which involves another aspect of body art - endurance; both hers and the audience’s. The performance of actions is also a shift from the study of objects to a study of processes, in an attempt to articulate the self in everyday life and establishing a social identity based on everyday acts shaped through the practice of daily rituals.

This investigation into the nature of; self-representation, self-portraiture, autobiography, endurance, performance, objectification, perception, identity, socio-cultural acceptability, authorship, ownership, viewing/looking and artistic process, asks the viewer to think of art and the nature of artistic enterprise anew, particularly in this part of the world.

Sheikh is the creator, subject and the object of the work, both observer and the observed. This dichotomy is further highlighted when the viewer, upon entering the gallery is encountered by a mirror, on the façade of a small white cubicle, the size of a standard try-room perhaps. The reality of the looking glass is revealed to the viewer upon entering the cubicle from the back, which acts as a mirror from one side and a window from the other.  So upon entering the gallery the viewer watches him/herself, while from the inside of the cubicle the viewer watches the ‘others’ watching themselves, without the awareness of being watched, caught looking in on a private moment, overlapping public and private domains. The act of looking at the drawings is not any less voyeuristic than the experience of the cubicle, at once hallucinatory and distanced, suggesting the space of an imaginary world, with which the viewer is engaged privately but disconnectedly, hence the presence of one compliments the presence of the other, while also allowing the viewer to engage with the work more actively.

On one hand Sheikh takes control over her display by extending this invitation to be drawn, to reject subjection, an act of naked defiance or a sudden confrontation, that places the viewer in an equally vulnerable position, while on the other hand she stands motionless after extending that invitation, playing a submissive role, making herself vulnerable, reinforcing the prevalent ideas of female subjectivity, in a confrontation with the thin line between celebration of female sexuality and objectification of the female body, a rather tricky relationship to explore the many levels of self.

The exhibition despite being viewed within a controlled environment, by a small circle of seemingly like-minded people (plus some accidental viewers) who were invited to view the exhibit, is nevertheless going to act like a lightning rod (perhaps even by some of the readers of this review) for conflicting views of feminism, propriety, social responsibility, art-world economics, reputation-building and artistic license, which is a healthy dialogue, both in creative terms and for an ever expanding definition of art, as long as its constructive.