I think no more so than if whoever else it was, was also in the nuddy. For the snow-sculpture, you can only tell it's Aphrodite because it's got no arms, which is not the traditional coded signal of ultimate desirability. If simply recognising Aphrodite is the problem, since the allusion to the Goddess naturally leads to unacceptable thoughts of sex, then I'm not sure how clothing her is supposed to help. Maybe adding arms would have solved the problem, so that wasn't the Venus de Milo, just some naked body-builder?
Of course it may be that *anyone* waiting for a bus in the nude is a sexual act (if not the most exciting sex act one could possibly imagine). Or for that matter than to be naked is to inhabit a sexual context. No inconsistency in taking that view, and accords to the prevailing cultural norm that nudity is inherently sexual, bodies (esp. womens') should properly be considered nothing other than sexual objects, etc, etc, which is exactly where I started.
The New Jersey police are factually correct to account for this being the majority view. What that view amounts to, is that you can't have a human body on show without making sure everybody is thinking about sex, which is why the snow-sculptor's view that the police have come along and increased the objectification is to be expected. If indeed the bikini top and sarong increase the level of objectification and sexualisation of these particular water crystals and the non-existent person they represent, then that is mission accomplished. The sculptor is either overlooking this, and trying to make the establishment see that the response conflicts with what she thought was the objective, or else is slyly pointing out the real goals here. I don't know which, but it's an interesting illustration of how prudery operates.
Of course there's a lot in what you say about Aphrodite *always* being naked - both in terms of how that objectifies her, and what it says about nudity. But with all due deference to the obvious fact that sculptors, and classical Greeks, and in particular classical Greek sculptors, are uniformly gay, I'm not sure we can say with certainly that e.g. Achilles, normally portrayed with bits hanging out, is a porn star, or that the statue in Hyde Park would be any more wholesome and non-sexual with some Speedos on it.
(if not the most exciting sex act one could possibly imagine)
Unless one's a bus driver. I bet there's a "Confessions..." film about that.
With clothes on, it looks like it's meant to be a shop-window mannequin. I don't think anyone seeing it now, without knowing the previous history, would read it as a depiction of Venus; whereas before, many people would have.
I agree entirely with your points around objectification etc, although I don't agree with the sculptor that clothing increases it (and, I'm sure, the police don't agree with her either). That seems to me wilfully disingenuous.
The Greeks treated male vs female nudity quite differently. It seems clear that male nudity was an important aspect of the heroic ideal, and wasn't generally intended as a sexual signal (in statuary, at least; whether the same was really true in real life, we can only guess). In female statuary, though, and also in female real life, nudity was uniformly a sex signifier.
Of course, being a wild-eyed post-modernist, I don't think that the Greeks' intentions necessarily have any relevance to our modern interpretation of such sculptures. But I think that we too generally apply a similar gender distinction; reading female nudity as more sexual than male nudity. Cultural hegemony of the (straight) male gaze, and all that.
Yes, the sculptor's objection does fall down if it's only in her mind that it's "a censored nude", and hence more definitively a sexual object than would be either "a nude", or "someone dressed for the beach". If it actually was recognisably the Venus de Milo once the clothes were on, then their effect might be what she says for more people.
Again I don't know the sculptor's mind, though, whether that's disingenuous or just not seeing things from the POV of the same ignorant passer-by whose POV you see.
I think no more so than if whoever else it was, was also in the nuddy. For the snow-sculpture, you can only tell it's Aphrodite because it's got no arms, which is not the traditional coded signal of ultimate desirability. If simply recognising Aphrodite is the problem, since the allusion to the Goddess naturally leads to unacceptable thoughts of sex, then I'm not sure how clothing her is supposed to help. Maybe adding arms would have solved the problem, so that wasn't the Venus de Milo, just some naked body-builder?
Of course it may be that *anyone* waiting for a bus in the nude is a sexual act (if not the most exciting sex act one could possibly imagine). Or for that matter than to be naked is to inhabit a sexual context. No inconsistency in taking that view, and accords to the prevailing cultural norm that nudity is inherently sexual, bodies (esp. womens') should properly be considered nothing other than sexual objects, etc, etc, which is exactly where I started.
The New Jersey police are factually correct to account for this being the majority view. What that view amounts to, is that you can't have a human body on show without making sure everybody is thinking about sex, which is why the snow-sculptor's view that the police have come along and increased the objectification is to be expected. If indeed the bikini top and sarong increase the level of objectification and sexualisation of these particular water crystals and the non-existent person they represent, then that is mission accomplished. The sculptor is either overlooking this, and trying to make the establishment see that the response conflicts with what she thought was the objective, or else is slyly pointing out the real goals here. I don't know which, but it's an interesting illustration of how prudery operates.
Of course there's a lot in what you say about Aphrodite *always* being naked - both in terms of how that objectifies her, and what it says about nudity. But with all due deference to the obvious fact that sculptors, and classical Greeks, and in particular classical Greek sculptors, are uniformly gay, I'm not sure we can say with certainly that e.g. Achilles, normally portrayed with bits hanging out, is a porn star, or that the statue in Hyde Park would be any more wholesome and non-sexual with some Speedos on it.
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Unless one's a bus driver. I bet there's a "Confessions..." film about that.
With clothes on, it looks like it's meant to be a shop-window mannequin. I don't think anyone seeing it now, without knowing the previous history, would read it as a depiction of Venus; whereas before, many people would have.
I agree entirely with your points around objectification etc, although I don't agree with the sculptor that clothing increases it (and, I'm sure, the police don't agree with her either). That seems to me wilfully disingenuous.
The Greeks treated male vs female nudity quite differently. It seems clear that male nudity was an important aspect of the heroic ideal, and wasn't generally intended as a sexual signal (in statuary, at least; whether the same was really true in real life, we can only guess). In female statuary, though, and also in female real life, nudity was uniformly a sex signifier.
Of course, being a wild-eyed post-modernist, I don't think that the Greeks' intentions necessarily have any relevance to our modern interpretation of such sculptures. But I think that we too generally apply a similar gender distinction; reading female nudity as more sexual than male nudity. Cultural hegemony of the (straight) male gaze, and all that.
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Again I don't know the sculptor's mind, though, whether that's disingenuous or just not seeing things from the POV of the same ignorant passer-by whose POV you see.
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