In our culture beauty is considered to be “in the eye of the beholder.” That doesn’t mean, however, that everyone is considered beautiful. To the average person, beautiful is someone with a “nice” body (this, depending on cultures, is extremely subjective and ranges), free of defects and pleasant to look out. Interestingly, though, while there is a physical component to relationships and love, I get the feeling that there’s a lot more to it than just beauty — this is significant because it indicates that beauty is not limited to physical appearance; rather, there are many components to a person and those are taken into account in determining an individual’s “net beauty” if you will.
However, I find this idea of beauty intriguing because, in art (especially modern), what is considered beautiful to an artist may be considered horrifying to an audience. Take for instance someone with many tattoos — to them (and many others) it is body art and is beautiful while it’s repulsive and frightening to another wide group of people. I’ve recently been looking at Ryan McGinley’s photography and, while the photographs are beautiful, the people in them are not necessarily so; at times I cringed at the subject matter while appreciating the beauty of the photograph. To many artists throughout history (Frieda Kahlo, Picasso and many modern artists) beauty is not conventional and that’s a very fine distinction that needs to be made in the art world. Below are a few of Ryan McGinley’s photographs from his “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” that premiered in March of this year at the Team Gallery here in the city. The point of McGinley’s project was to ask himself what a classical typical portrait of his would look like. McGinley handpicked 150 people from around the globe to photograph — while they are by no means conventionally beautiful (note: he has also photographed celebrities such as Ellen Page, M.I.A & Michael Cera — traditionally beautiful people) and these people look disproportionate and awkward in many of the photographs, there is something aesthetically appealing and beautiful about the photographs and the people in them. Therefore, beauty is not necessary in art because there is no one definition for what beauty is; not every person will look at the same thing as beautiful, that is the relationship between artist and viewer.
(Rila)
(Matt K)
(Victor)
(Louis)
(Algo B)
“Rila” depicts an Eve figure, like the one from the Ghent Altar piece by Van Eyck, in the same way “Louis” portrays a David such as the Donatello Bronze statue. In referencing the past and attempting to capture universal truths, the artist has created “aesthetically pleasing” beautiful artifacts. I have been convinced that if an object trigers a collective memory of self (society), we appreciate and accept it as beautiful. It will be interesting to do research to refute or establish this idea.