Erotic Saturday: Exposed Bums at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Culture occurs at the edge" — attributed to Roland Barthes

Another thought about Alexander McQueen and the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Savage Beauty," running until August here in New York City.


I agree with the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen. He designed a style of pantalons that expose just a little bit of the buttocks, as seen in the above picture (which he playfully called bumsters). McQueen believed the most erotic part of a person's body, whether male or female, is their slightly exposed backside. 


I agree. The mesh of clothes revealing a gap of skin is erotic indeed.


Roland Barthes put the same thought in a slightly different way:

"Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no "erogenous zones" (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance. " 

Credit: Catherine McGann/Getty Images
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Aesthetic Thursday: Alexander McQueen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this blog post, I write about the newest fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Alexander McQueen - Savage Beauty. 

The Dialectic of Beauty, Alexander McQueen Struggles with Deconstructive Aesthetics

    If you are in New York City between now and August 7, 2011, check out the "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Exhibit."

    The exhibit boasts an ample retrospective on the deceased fashion designer's life works, dating back from his seminal graduate student collection inspired by Jack the Ripper to his most recent posthumous collection.

    Jellyfish designs, a macabre mixture of duck feathers and leather masks, spray-on dresses, and kinky "bumster" design pants, the McQueen exhibit is a touching tribute to a man who certainly obsessed over dichotomies, divergences, and the question of the beautiful.

Will I Shine Among the Shades in Hades Like Tiresias?

Henry Fuseli, Tiresias appears to 
Ulysses during the sacrificing (1780-1785) 

Yesterday I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for my bi-monthly one hour visit. I go to the museum immediately after psychoanalysis. I'm sure there is a connection to that somehow. Reliving painful experience followed by the need to be absorbed by beauty seems like a rational explanation. Also: proximity. Dr. X's office is on the Upper East Side so it is not too far of a walk to attend a visit to one of the world's most voluminous holders of art. I checked in my bags. Bag attendant: "Do you have any electronic devices?" I answer a laconic "no." "Do you mind if we inspect your bag, sir?" I am secretly relieved my latest issue of Wet and Wild is absent. Just kidding. This is a kid-friendly blog. So I will say, "just kidding." Although I am sure there are a few number of kids who do read this blog. And if they do and they are scandalized then I am sure I can rightly join the ranks of Socrates's who was charged with "corruption of the youth." In fact, I just had a conversation about Socrates's trial in class last Thursday. Most students agree that Socrates is a cool cat. But, I wonder if they would have liked him if they had actually met him. I too think Socrates is a cool cat but I have a suspicion that I would not like him very much. I think it is the passage in the Meno that compares him to a stingray. Meno tells him that his frequent and accumulating questions without answers numb him like a sting ray's sting (or a jellyfish?). Why be so numbing Socrates? It goes against educational practice today. We are not supposed to overload our students with too many questions. Socrates asks Meno one question after another. Without answer. And more complicated. Can virtue be taught? He does not like Meno's answer so he asks him more questions. How can we get at the heart of virtue? Do we even know what virtue is in its essence? I don't think Socrates is satisfied that strength tells us anything about courage as a whole or that healthy bones tell us anything about health. Socrates wants to get at the heart of the matter. We don't know anything about the essence of a virtue. In fact we know nothing for certain about wholes in of themselves. We know via recollection. We remember knowledge. Since we existed before this life (our souls are immortal) we come into corporeal existences with the memory of our past existence buried deep within us. Knowledge is memory recall. The puzzle is the access to our soul's knowledge is not an open flood way. It is more like a dam with tiny holes allowing a minuscule of seepage to pass through. Damn transmigration of souls. How can I know anything if I do not even know that I must remember to know? That is the stingray part. At least for me. How do I access the treasure trove of knowledge from above? Do I look at beautiful things to stimulate my mind to recollect? Socrates suggests it is all by mere chance. So remember and some don't. The son of a wise man is not necessarily wise. The key is the tether. When you got it — hold it down. Don't let a morsel of knowledge get away and be able to distinguish the dross from the good stuff. I like how the Meno ends. Odysseus was able to identify Tiresias among the shades in Hell because Tiresias shone with a special light. He was a flitter of glory among shadows. In other words who knows when we will "get it"; maybe never, but the thing is, when we do in fact see it, we will know it.

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Aesthetic Thursday: Boy in a Striped Sweater

Amedeo Modigliani, Boy in a Striped Sweater, 1918, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Oil on canvas
H. 36, W. 21-1/2 inches (91.5 x 54.5 cm.)

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Poetry Repost: "I am what I am"

By Jacques Prevert

Tercerunquinto.
I Am What I Am

I am what I am
I am made like that
When I have a desire to laugh
Yes, I laugh with a burst of laughter
I like the him who likes me
And it isn't my fault
If it isn't always the same him
That I love every time
I am what I am
What do you want more
What do you want of me

I am made to please
And I can't change a thing
My heels are too high
My waist too arched
My breasts much too hard
And my eyes too dark
And then what is more
What can that be to you
I am what I am
I please who I please
What can that be to you
What has happened to me
Yes I've loved someone
Yes someone has loved me
Like children love each other
Just know how to love
Love to love
Why ask me questions
I am there to please you

Tercerunquinto.
I Am What I Am
Installation view, Ikon Eastside 2008
Photo: Stuart Whipps

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Photograph Series: The Yellow Phone

In this series of photographs, Greig Roselli serves up some yellow pay phone realness.