Home Arts 7. Nudity
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

7. Nudity

View more publications by Stanford University Press
To Publisher Page
Nudities
This chapter is in the book Nudities
§ 7Nudity551. On April 8, 2005, a performance by Vanessa Beecroft took place in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. A hundred nude women (though, in truth, they were wearing transparent pantyhose) stood, immobile and indifferent, exposed to the gaze of visitors who, after having waited on a long line, entered in groups into a vast space on the museum’s ground floor. The visitors, at once timid and curious, began to cast sidelong glances at bodies that were, after all, there to be looked at. After walking around them, as if they were conducting reconnaissance, the visitors began to distance themselves embarrassedly from the almost military ranks of the hostile, naked bodies. The first impression of those who at-tempted to observe not only the women but also the visitors was that this was a nonplace. Something that could have and, perhaps, should have happened did not take place.Clothed men who observe nude bodies: this scene irresistibly evokes the sadomasochistic ritual of power. In the beginning of Pasolini’s Salò (which more or less faithfully reproduces de Sade’s One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom), four party-officials are about to lock themselves in their villa. While they remain fully clothed, the officials proceed to attentively inspect victims whom they compel to enter naked, so as to evaluate their merits and de-fects. Clothed, too, were the American soldiers standing in front of a pile of their tortured prisoners’ naked bodies in the Abu Ghraib
© 2022 Stanford University Press, Redwood City

§ 7Nudity551. On April 8, 2005, a performance by Vanessa Beecroft took place in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. A hundred nude women (though, in truth, they were wearing transparent pantyhose) stood, immobile and indifferent, exposed to the gaze of visitors who, after having waited on a long line, entered in groups into a vast space on the museum’s ground floor. The visitors, at once timid and curious, began to cast sidelong glances at bodies that were, after all, there to be looked at. After walking around them, as if they were conducting reconnaissance, the visitors began to distance themselves embarrassedly from the almost military ranks of the hostile, naked bodies. The first impression of those who at-tempted to observe not only the women but also the visitors was that this was a nonplace. Something that could have and, perhaps, should have happened did not take place.Clothed men who observe nude bodies: this scene irresistibly evokes the sadomasochistic ritual of power. In the beginning of Pasolini’s Salò (which more or less faithfully reproduces de Sade’s One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom), four party-officials are about to lock themselves in their villa. While they remain fully clothed, the officials proceed to attentively inspect victims whom they compel to enter naked, so as to evaluate their merits and de-fects. Clothed, too, were the American soldiers standing in front of a pile of their tortured prisoners’ naked bodies in the Abu Ghraib
© 2022 Stanford University Press, Redwood City

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Translators’ Note ix
  4. 1. Creation and Salvation 1
  5. 2. What Is the Contemporary? 10
  6. 3. K. 20
  7. 4. On the Uses and Disadvantages of Living among Specters 37
  8. 5. On What We Can Not Do 43
  9. 6. Identity without the Person 46
  10. 7. Nudity 55
  11. 8. The Glorious Body 91
  12. 9. Hunger of an Ox: Considerations on the Sabbath, the Feast, and Inoperativity 104
  13. 10. The Last Chapter in the History of the World 113
  14. Notes 115
  15. Credits 121
  16. Crossing Aesthetics 123
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503627413-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Translators’ Note ix
  4. 1. Creation and Salvation 1
  5. 2. What Is the Contemporary? 10
  6. 3. K. 20
  7. 4. On the Uses and Disadvantages of Living among Specters 37
  8. 5. On What We Can Not Do 43
  9. 6. Identity without the Person 46
  10. 7. Nudity 55
  11. 8. The Glorious Body 91
  12. 9. Hunger of an Ox: Considerations on the Sabbath, the Feast, and Inoperativity 104
  13. 10. The Last Chapter in the History of the World 113
  14. Notes 115
  15. Credits 121
  16. Crossing Aesthetics 123
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 24.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781503627413-008/html?srsltid=AfmBOoqWfWdtery1BQgMzo8TMiso9miv-XNBxafemtj20Ub6n6SZk4sk
Scroll to top button