The academic body / edited by Mark Robbins and Peter Benson Miller.

New York ; Rome : American Academy in Rome, 2019.

130 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 28 cm

BEIN 2020 1160: Paperbound.

Since the origins of representation, the human body has been a vehicle for a variety of approaches to artistic expression. As a way of imagining the divine, as a site of ideal beauty and ruminations on mortality, or as the contested ground between nature and culture, bodies--and representations of bodies--index culture's ideas about itself and mark the locus for the questioning and contestation of the human form. Recently, the body has reemerged as a work in progress, a canvas to be altered, conforming to changing canons of beauty or constantly evolving constructed gender roles. In this capacity, the body as a malleable form has once again taken center stage in cultural debate and artistic expression. As lightning rods for contemporary social issues--including the violence committed against the marginalized, the recognition of transgender individuals, and the replacement of workers by robotics, to name only a few examples--bodies have assumed unprecedented visibility in political discourse. Mindful of these issues, this exhibition tracks the ways in which the body has been interrogated and transformed in contemporary art from 1894 to the present. As it has evolved from a stalwart of Academic artistic practice to a laboratory for cutting-edge dialogue between critical theory and creative endeavor, the American Academy in Rome (AAR) is uniquely qualified to host an exhibition tracking the changing representations of the body in art and society. In so doing, the institution reflects critically on its own trajectory and enduring relevance. The Academic Body features work by artists affiliated with the AAR (Fellows and Residents) whose work has explored the above themes in provocative ways, as well as artists whose trajectories have intersected meaningfully and critically with Italy and the Academic tradition.

English

September 23, 2020

Includes bibliographical references.

Exhibition catalogs.