Chelsea Art Museum Exhibits 'Dangerous Beauty'

Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:32

New York City - In the wake of the controversial ban on underweight models by Madrid’s fashion week, and the recent publicized death from anorexia of a Latin American model, the fashion industry and the media went into a short-lived frenzy of self reflection asking, what is too thin?  The proposed ban drew support from only two other countries – Israel and India – while it was flatly rejected by the major fashion capitals of the world: Paris, London and New York.  In a climate where whoever is thinner gets the job, the pressure to be thin is enormous and as these are the women and girls who are relentlessly photographed, they become style role models for a population fascinated with celebrity.  On exhibit until 21 April, 2007.

In the quest to emulate this fiction of desirability, the journey from manipulation of images to the “doctoring” and manipulation of the self seems increasingly short.  More money is spent in this country on cosmetics than on education and social services combined, while close to two million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed last year in the United States.  Anorexia and self-mutilation are rampant. Girls, women and increasingly men alike, compare themselves to the air brushed “beauties” and feel that everything about themselves is wrong.

The exhibition, Dangerous Beauty, investigates and challenges society’s ideal of beauty and the designer body created and supported by mass consumerism.  Many of the artists selected capture the anxiety of this beauty -centered society and raise questions on the human impact of living in the glare of images that, without manipulation, may have no human incarnation.  The exhibition aims to raise questions about the mass ideology of beauty and explore the connections between beauty and violence, the phobia of aging, issues of self-perception and the element of power inherent in an “ideal.”