Kanye West | John Currin's Boldly Moral Sensuality
It’s politically incorrect for me to say that I’m speechless over the quality of Kanye West’s blog. Writing a couple weeks ago that I was eager to see ‘next’, I had no idea that West would deliver John Currin’s lusty, leering paintings that are authentic parodies of American’s sex-obsessed culture, especially when it comes to females.
For every woman who screams ‘objectified’, I say we are. Get over it and convert the reality to personal power. Put John Currin together with his wife Rachel Feinstein, creator of “Crucifixion” 2003, and we have an Anne of Carversville match made in heaven.
Rachel Feinstein, “Crucifixion” 2003I’m not conversant on John Currin’s techniques, which some criticize as popular due to to the lowered standards of today’s art world. Perhaps. But I love the confidence and bold ability with with he satirizes society and its relationship with eroticism and sexuality, without reducing his subjects.
Caricature isn’t a word I would use to describe Currin’s art, although some might use it selectively. And with the ‘honor the goddess woman’ sensibility emerging in the early days of the Kanye West blog, his team agrees with me.
I’ve celebrated female sexuality more years than I want to admit, and I’m reluctant to get behind a promising ‘moment’ in both American and global culture. Goodness knows America — who as recently as 2003 was covering up the bare breast of the Statue of Justice in then Attorney General John Ashocroft’s Justice Department — has not furthered the aims of a positive female sexuality one iota in the last decade.
For Conservatives and fundamentalists, an empowered female sexuality means the end of patriarchal values — which are the essence of modern civilization. And yet, I’m well aware of an emerging new mood, one I’ve called New Eroticism.
Perhaps digital life is pulling us in a more female-centric direction. I’m no fan of American Vogue, yet their interview and photos of Gisele as ‘Earth Mother’ are dazzling. Fashion media is taking off most of the clothes on women’s bodies, jamming the erotic or soft porn down our throats — like it or not — although I support the effort with good photographers.
Yes, the Vatican and Bart Stupak are trying to further erode women’s abortion rights, highjacking US health care, but the Vatican has its own problems to worry about this moment. Talk about men with higher principels. It’s OK, you can laugh. It’s better than crying over the hypocrisy, considering the sexual guilt that’s consumed women for years.
BBC News’ correspondent calls the current Vatican crisis the worst in four decades.
When I view John Currin’s work, I want to scream an orgasmic ‘yes’. And to find the photos featured on Kanye West’s blog, I’m REALLY excited. Any rapper guy who blogs into African fertility goddesses and erotic art stands front and center with me. Anne
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