I’m just going to be honest, in this statue she looks like a dude. From the neck up, she could be a man– her face is really masculine and you can’t see any of her hair because it’s all covered up by her khat (or, pharoah hat). If her dress hadn’t slid down quite scantily to reveal her entire left breast, she could have easily been mistaken for a boy.
She is wearing a very crisply carved flowing dress that hangs around her stone body as if it were actual fabric. Her doubled beaded necklace has a huge centerpiece hanging from it that looks like it would have been pretty heavy in real life. But for all this glamour she looks upset, her eyebrows are furrowed and her right arm is propping up her head and casting her gaze downward, like the answer to whatever problem she’s having is somewhere on the floor. Or maybe she’s just upset that she’s been put by the wall where no one can see her, instead of out in the middle of the gallery exhibit where all the more naked, more feminine statues stand.
Christian art is so funny. It looks like how it’s supposed to look, which I suppose is a good thing but usually it just feels so… uninspired. Which is ironic because Christianity takes its essence in inspiration. You’re supposed to feel Jesus in your heart and sense the evil of Satan and temptation. And compared to how involved your heart is supposed to be in the religion, there’s a surprising lack of heart in the art that represents it here in this exhibit. I don’t think anyone’s ever seen a painting or a statue of Jesus and been able to recognize who made it. There’s no style, there’s no voice. Because just like any of the various establishments that teach the religion, nothing is ever really open to interpretation. Because different interpretations mean different sects and stand as dividing factors between who’s Lutheran and who’s Catholic. Somehow though, all of these sects seemed to agree on how the general field of Christianity would be represented to the world: Jesus is white (even though he probably wasn’t) he has a beard, Mary is young and beautiful, and for the most part, everyone looks exactly the same. People are always kneeling or praying or reading the Bible or mourning Jesus’ death. And honestly, if you’ve seen one stained glass window, you’ve seen them all.
Size is the only difference I can find. But the only other really obvious difference in these depictions is the little halo around Mary’s head—she’s either divine or she isn’t. And for one little circle there really has been a whole lot of fighting. But sitting down, looking at all of this Chrisitan art in one space makes all those subtle differences (that for some reason are the biggest deal) seem like the dumbest disagreement I’ve ever heard of because when it comes down to it, a cross is a cross. And all the artistic representations of what the Catholics and the Protestants believe in look almost exactly the same.
Even in other religions, it’s basically all just praise of the divine, and it’s so upsetting that so many people have had to die just because “the divine” means different things to different people, even though the fundamental concept remains the same. Because even though almost every religion attempts to teach peace and acceptance, if your Jesus isn’t white or bearded then you’re wrong and all of this boring repetitive art is what’s getting into heaven instead of you.
The curvature of her back leads your eyes to where the rest of her body might have been. She’s missing her bent left leg, her head and both arms, but the crouching position the remaining parts of her body are in could leave this miniature woman doing pretty much anything. Her shoulders are twisted as if she’s falling or leaning, and the accuracy of her back and torso muscles beneath the layer of stone skin makes this sculpture beautiful despite what it’s lost. Even without seeing the front of this headless sculpture, it’s clear that it’s a woman even at first glance- her full hips and dainty shoulders give her away immediately.
Even though the museum’s supplied a pretty crude representation of what this statue might have looked like, what’s left is still a million times more beautiful.
She looks so effortlessly sexy. Her arms lifted over her head and her eyes looking down. She just looks real. She has small breasts and wide hips, and even though that seems so different form what’s considered “sexy” in this plastic-surgery/spray tan/skinny minny society we live in now, this woman and this statue makes it very obvious that sexiness in its purest form comes from the way you carry yourself and not the body you were born in. Because bodies are things, just an exterior. And the way you hold yourself shows how you feel about who you are instead of this sad Real Housewives “ideal” we see so many women striving for. But this statue and this woman don’t have to try, and she doesn’t even look posed—just captured in time as no one else but her.
Above the description of Bell and his previous works posted in the gallery is Bell’s own self-portrait in New York. His right hand reaches out in front of him, and his black jacket blends into the buildings behind him, as if they are one and the same. The sun hits the side of the building and shines right into the lens as the brightest part of this black and white portrait. Not smiling and looking straight into the camera, he must be angling himself and the camera together, because the Empire State Building and the other behind him are almost fully included in the picture as they reach up towards the sky. The photograph was taken on May 12, 2010 in East Midtown, Manhattan. Most of the other photographs in the exhibit feature the person in their workplace or wherever it is that plays a part in who they are, and this placement of Bell in front of the most famous building in the city, in almost the very middle of Manhattan, makes him not only a participant, but the center of his gallery.
Zoe Heller, An Englishman in New York
If you were to continue along the gallery, moving through it clockwise, the photograph following this description and self-portrait is of writer Zoe Heller, most well-known for her novels Notes on Scandal and The Believers. But in this picture of her sitting on a metal stoop by the street in Tribeca, all she looks like is a New Yorker. She’s sitting at an angle on the corner of the stoop, with her right arm propping up her face and her left draped across her knees. Her black converses are loose and untied and she has what looks like a tattoo on her upper right arm. She wears a watch on that hand. She seems like she’s waiting—waiting and looking for who ever she’s waiting for. Her eyes are focused past the camera, but it’s her nose and her lips that draw attention to her face—her nose strong and catching light, her lips full and patient. She’s wearing large, but thin, silver hoop earrings that are mostly hidden by her curly brown hair. She looks like anyone you might pass on the street in New York: casual and creative. In her quote hanging next to her photograph she says, “There’s a mythology here that anything is possible. With so many things, I’m torn between the appeal of that American hopefulness and a kind of English realism.”
Hanging next to Heller is a color portrait of the Detective from the Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, Martin Speechley who says, “As a NY City police officer I don’t just live in the city, I’m a part of it… the NYPD is like a big family. Inside the Englishman in me is still there.” The next wall is one of the short ones in this rectangular room, filled with all color photographs. Here we meet playwright Sir Peter Shaffer and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Sir Mark Lyall Grant. Then, as the only portrait oriented photograph, hanging in the very center of the wall, is one of Thomas P. Campbell, the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This photograph compliments its center status with a symmetrical border within. This border is made of ancient Egyptian ruins, familiar to any New Yorker as the top floor exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Through the doorway of this ancient wall covered in carved hieroglyphics stands Campbell, facing the right but with his head and upper body turned the ninety degrees toward the camera. Dressed professionally in a suit and tie, with black framed glasses on his nose, you can see even more of the same ruins surrounding him. Anyone who’s familiar with the successful British comedian John Oliver will notice a very strong resemblance—a round but serious face, a small straight-lined mouth, and slightly graying hair. In his description to the left, Campbell’s quoted as saying, “I first came to New York in 1985 as a student. I fell in love with the city’s international cast of characters, the scale of the extraordinary buildings cheek-by-jowl with the most rundown, God-forsaken, almost forgotten areas… This is such an exciting country to live in. By living in New York and going back to Europe regularly I have the best of both worlds.”
