Tradition or Modernity – Illustrated Feature 2

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Today, women are breaking many traditional roles. We often hear about independent women, but how often do talk about traditional women? The Woodward gallery’s, located on 133 Eldridge Street, current exhibit displays the artwork created by Cristina Vergano. The exhibit is called Just for You. While walking through the exhibit, one may notice that most paintings have either a woman or an animal in it. Most of Cristina Vergano’s paintings focus on the problem of women choosing between traditional aspects or modern aspects theme.

As I walked around the gallery, many paintings were quite disturbing. There were women bodies with animal heads, and in one picture many parts of a women’s body were scattered all over a painting. It made me wonder what the artist was thinking while painting these paintings. Even though they were disconcerting, the paintings still attracted my attention because as I walked around I noticed that each painting had a similar concept – traditional women compared to modern women. The artist incorporated tradition and modernity into each painting.

For example, there are three paintings of Muslim women wearing today’s lingerie, the ones we usually see at Victoria’s Secret. Traditional Muslim women compare to today’s Muslim women are both very conservative. Most of them do not show any parts of their bodies except their eyes. Even though, today Muslim women usually show their faces, they still keep many of their old traditions. The fact that the paintings reveal lingerie underneath the clothes shows that the western women affect traditional societies. Western countries are usually the first to be associated with women’s rights thus incorporating western lingerie reveals the most inner feelings of women wanting to have more rights. It also gave me a sense of feeling that the Muslim woman in the painting was wondering if she should follow her old traditions or reveal her inner self, who wants to be free. The struggle between traditions and modernity has always been an issue in society, and just by drawing two different perspectives the author is able to question the viewers their response to which side they believe she should choose.

In another display, Vergano made sculptures of two birds that had human legs. Birds are usually symbols of freedom, and the fact that the birds have legs relates back to being human beings. Legs are what enable us to walk, but they are also what keep us on the ground. The fact that the birds have both human legs and wings tells us the choice to fly away from traditions or the choice to stay on the ground and keep the traditions, is our decision. Women are free to choose what they want to do because now they have gained a considerable amount of rights. However there are also aspects that make women want to stay on the ground, which includes family and religion. Again, we encounter the problem of the old rules versus the new rules. By using legs to represent tradition and wings to represent the present, Vergano once again raise the difficulty of choosing either side.

One thing I notice in Vergano’s displays is that most of them used the technique of mixing human bodies with animal bodies, which seem awkward to me. Vergano has a sculpture, made of mixed media and porcelain, of a woman wearing western-styled lingerie, but has a rabbit head.  Another display, made with oil pastels, has three naked women. Each is holding an animal mask. Beneath their mask, two of the women have animal heads, one of a bird and another of a dog. Lastly, one of the artwork displays a woman in a modern dress showing off her legs with a horse head. As I was reading the introduction to the displays, it said that the displays were supposed to “recall female versions of Egyptian gods as well as classical statue with a substantial nod to surrealism.” Egyptians usually use animals with human bodies to represent Gods. In these displays, we can once more see the traditional views and the modern views blended together. This is to remind the viewers the difficulty of both keeping traditions and keeping up with the trend, which can lead to people choosing one side and causes conflict.

The exhibit with the three naked women is supposed to be a prostitution house, and the fact that some of them have animal heads questions the viewers on the problem of tradition versus choice in life. Some people do not have choices thus they are unable to follow traditions, but the artists also wants us to think about people that actually have choices. Sometimes having the chance to make a choice is harder than not having the chance to make one, just like choosing between traditions and modernity.

The artist questions the complexity of tradition and modernity—how it is hard to choose either side let alone mix both of them together into ones’ life, but the choice belongs to the viewers.