It ain’t my problem when some guy calls me a “whore” for exposing a shoulder in public either. Might not be performance art, but fact is, we all judge each other on appearance, we all react to each other’s bodies (us being corporeal beings and all) – and I think that sexist reactions are the responsibility of the sexist in question.

As for artistic intent – I think that how it is received depends on the audience in question, and audience is not at all uniform – even the biggest misogynists in this world will differ as to how they approach her performance. Some will say it’s a sin. Some will laugh at it. Some will be appalled. Some will be challenged or terrified by it – and express anger to cover for their feelings. Saying that intent and/or audience demographics don’t matter it’s like saying that the only correct reading of, say, the work of Kate Atkinson was done by the Daily Mail when it became outraged that a “chambermaid won the Whitbread.” In essence, it would mean that we shouldn’t create anything at all – lest a group of assholes, any assholes, appropriate it or twist its meaning.

As an undergrad, I did my thesis on Kate Atkinson’s second book – and while I don’t think it necessarily came close to her own intent, it was pretty different from what the Daily Mail wrote about her. Of course, I always knew that my thesis was never going to be read like the Daily Mail is read – but that didn’t inspire me to throw up my hands and announce to my prof that it doesn’t matter and that I’m going to the pub instead of finishing it. You do what you must, after all.

No…you (they) look at it for the nudity, the woman’s nudity, you don’t care about artistic interpretation, or having any kind of “artistic literacy”….even academics would not care about the “irony” of a performance like this. I kind of get what she’s trying to do, but the wrong people will be looking if she is trying to get a message across in that way.

Sorry, but by the time I got to this thread, the vid had been removed, and had to do some mighty nimble scrolling, even on me nice little rolling mouse to get down to here, so am going by comments alone.

Oh and, “The obscenity of the male sex is that everything fills up, swells up, and spews poison”. Daisy “Satire” Puke.

“SCUM will become members of the unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds an unwork. For example, SCUM salesgirls will not charge for merchandise; SCUM telephone operators will not charge for calls; SCUM office and factory workers, in addition to fucking up their work, will secretly destroy equipment. SCUM will unwork at a job until fired, then get a new job to unwork at.

SCUM will forcibly relieve bus drivers, cab drivers and subway token sellers of their jobs and run buses and cabs and dispense free tokens to the public.

SCUM will destroy all useless and harmful objects — cars, store windows, `Great Art’, etc.

Eventually SCUM will take over the airwaves — radio and TV networks — by forcibly relieving of their jobs all radio and TV employees who would impede SCUM’s entry into the broadcasting studios.

SCUM will couple-bust — barge into mixed (male-female) couples, wherever they are, and bust them up.”

When men are claiming something is subversive to the patriarchy, you can be sure it’s a rubbish idea.

I would call this equal parts subversion of the patriarchy, and inventive patriarchal striptease (which might be even more subversive).

I like seeing a nice healthy-looking naked woman — by which I mean a woman who looks like she’s healthy-minded enough not to be coy or flirtatious but simply “here I am, take me or leave me”.

@Gayle:

Yeah, I think that’s part of the point. The doll looks just like her, and she’s standing RIGHT THERE with it (or photographing), yet people feel free to do the most disgusting things to it since it can’t fight back. It’s the ultimate victimization.

It’s doubly creepy because it reveals the kind of treatment she herself might experience at the hands of these strangers if she weren’t able to defend herself–and in some cases, even if she were.

1. Yes, I thought the shoes were the next logical step, and then she would be done.

2. If the redness of the hanky coming from the vagina was meant to shock by referring to blood, then it should have been white until it came from the vagina. Otherwise, we all missed the point for the most part. Brown would have made it even better, because I thought it came out of her ass as well.

Very meh, in my opinion, and without the nudity, I suspect she would be unemployed.

As far as the lesbian performance space with stripping, I would really like to see some discussion of the misogyny of lesbians, which these days is really getting to be overt as exemplified by the “boi” paradigm. IBTP, of course.

Therefore, the notion that a woman can chuck her clothes and gyrate onstage in just about any public situation and have it subvert the patriarchy is nigh on unimaginable. “Oh look! There’s a toilet! And it’s engaging in amusing and eccentric antics! I will especially enjoy relieving my incontinence in this particular one!”

*Rather than questioning why anyone in their right minds would be cleaning other people’s bathrooms if not for fear of poverty. And why the hell is that? One fucked up world.