In Venus' orbit

By MARY ANN MARGER

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 6, 2001

Since her discovery in the 1800s, the Venus de Milo has been entrancing artists all over the world, who have appropriated her for their own works.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Chocolate, they say, is good for you. So is fine art. And when you can find an exhibit that is as pleasurable as the taste of fine chocolate, the experience is indeed sweet.

Such an exhibit has opened at the Salvador Dali Museum: "A Disarming Beauty: the Venus de Milo in Twentieth Century Art."

Over the years, scholars and artists have wondered: How were her arms positioned? Who sculpted her? What was her function? Could she possibly be as awesome if her arms were intact?

The original Greek statue is believed to date from the second century B.C. It was discovered in 1820 on the Aegean island of Melos. Its classical beauty fit well in France's academy-based aesthetic standards of the day, and the French managed to acquire it, installing it at the Louvre, where it still resides.

Armless but never charmless, the Venus has inspired artists ever since her discovery in 1820. So great is her beauty, bare to the hip, her torso turning gracefully, her face perfection without expression, she has inspired countless artistic obsessions.

Andres Serrano, Female Bust, 1988, Cibachrome print, silicone, plexiglass, wood frame

Over the years, artists have given her eyes, a headband and lipstick. She has appeared in countless advertisements, as an accompanying show in the Raymond James Community Room at the Dali will attest.

Dali put an ear on her nose; Arman attached propellors to her side; Adrian Tranquilli attached an alien to her belly. Arman's version is the closest to the actual size of the original.

She is believed to be the most appropriated and reproduced sculpture in the history of art.

Suzanne Ramljak, a freelance curator and editor of Metalsmith magazine, brought the show together after seeing Dali's Hallucinogenic Toreador at the St. Petersburg museum. The huge masterwork repeats the image of Venus numerous times throughout the canvas.

Ramljak set out in search of other artists who had been so taken with the lady. One artist would lead her to another. "When I found more and more examples of this work, I thought, "Something is going on here. There are other beautiful sculptures. But why this fascination with Venus de Milo?' "

She made her investigation, and this show, the subject of her doctoral dissertation at City University of New York.

The results of her search uncovered enough works that Ramljak could be choosy. "I wanted to show the range," she says. "I wanted to show the strongest, most interesting treatment."

She has assembled a display of 46 works by 21 artists, ranging from the surrealists of the 1920s and '30s to Ed Paschke, who made monoprints at Studio-f at the University of Tampa in 1999. (Yes, Tampa Bay, you're on the map.)

As if to prove the sculpture's enduring beauty, artists who use the Venus motif generally use it repeatedly.

To the romantics of the 19th century, the classical style was beauty personified. The sculptor Rodin is quoted in the show's catalog as saying, "This work is the expression of the greatest antique inspiration; it is voluptuousness regulated by restraint; it is the joy of life cadenced, moderated by reason."

The surrealists saw the sculpture differently. They derived their raison d'etre from Freudian psychology, and Venus de Milo symbolized eroticism. Max Ernst, Man Ray and Rene Magritte all incorporated her. Dali is represented in the show by nine works that make reference to her, from the phallic symbol Venus a la Girafe to the fragile plaster Venus de Milo With Drawers, the pulls covered in fur, an example of the artist's motif of furniture as cutouts in the human body. Both works are borrowed from private collections abroad.

Komar and Melamid, The Venus de Milo, 1983, oil on canvas

Venus' influence declined with abstract expressionism in the mid 20th century, replacing the representational with an attitude of self-referential autonomy. But she reappeared as pop artists and others rediscovered her.

Venus fits in well with the art of today, which often appropriates images and objects, altering their original meaning by setting them in new contexts. They have given the lady richer dimensions.

They reflect the change in Venus. No longer functioning as a goddess of love but as an artifact of the past, this mutilated, long-lost figure can represent feminist issues, abuse and survival.

Andres Serrano, who achieved notoriety in 1989 for his photograph Piss Christ, in which a crucifix is submerged in urine, used the same method for Venus, her head seen clearly in a misty photo of red and yellow. Rather than denigrate her, he expresses her resistance to physical elements and humiliation.

Judith Page renders her in five small sculptures ranging from Beast to Scarlet Woman. Betty Tompkins sees her as a victim, branded like cattle.

Other artworks are less issue-oriented. Pop artist Jim Dine, obsessed with forms and symbols (hearts, fans, his bathrobe), has repeatedly abstracted Venus's torso and rendered it colorfully in two and three dimensions.

In a work titled simply Tires, Xiaojia Peng has carved Venus' likeness into tire-shaped wood and rolled it along strips of fabric, suspended from above. Larry Jens Anderson has searched out castoffs of Venus of different sizes and has arranged them in a row, their heads at the same level.

Russian emigre collaborators Komar and Melamid, who have exhibited several times in the bay area, have given Venus arms, one holding a hammer, the other a sickle.

Emerging European artist Adrian Tranquilli's Artist: The Alien, Paris, France, 1960 (actually done in 1998) appropriates the extraterrestrial bursting from the beauty's abdomen, all done in the brilliant blue associated with artist Yves Klein.

More whimsically, Shirley Klinghoffer casts her into 147 tiny, altered icons reinforcing the "three ages of woman." George Maciunas' Venus de Milo Barbecue Apron, a serigraph on vinyl produced by the hundreds, straddles the line between fine and commercial art. It is here framed behind glass.

The exhibit is clever good fun, but the artworks themselves hold their own in critical circles. The Venus theme provides an entry point to developing an understanding of the artist's concept.

The show proves that old maxim, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

A Disarming Beauty: the Venus de Milo in Twentieth Century Art, through Sept. 9 at Salvador Dali Museum, 1000 Third St. S, St. Petersburg. Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday (open until 8 p.m. Thursday); noon to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Adults $10, discounts for others, $2 off coupon at http://www.salvadordalimuseum.org. Call (727) 823-3767.

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