In this exhibition of sculptures artist Eti Gadish de Lange seeks to rearticulate the place of the female body in the cultural-artistic discourse. The hybrid figures combine Barbie-like doll heads – as an image of commercialized, formulaic, and artificial beauty – with organic female bodies carved from wood. This combination creates a space of conscious opposition to social dictates aimed at profound female empowerment.
The title “Super Figurine” is charged with qualities associated with superheroines in an attempt to enable women to regain control over their own body image. Rather than the ideal female body that is often objectified, here the artist creates a different body, one that seeks to embody a meaningful female existence, free of idealization. The wooden figurines on display in the museum library form a visual text constructed from an assortment of wood chips, branches, tree trunks and wooden planks collected from carpentry shops or washed ashore as driftwood. The artist’s carvings preserve the inherent essence of the wood as a material, including its cracks, whereas the faces of the figurines are made of synthetic plastic. The museum visitor is confronted by different embodiments of the female body: a fertility figurine reminiscent of ancient times, a tall and upright character, an injured girl whose face is concealed by a hair ribbon, a defiant woman who calls attention to her femininity, a woman with the head of a rabbit.
The critical feminist act Gadish de Lange makes through these characters places the female body as a changing space of opposition. The unnatural juxtaposition of head to body raises questions regarding identity and gender as well concerning degree of control and cultural conditioning. In this way the artist exposes the social mechanisms that continue to generate images of beauty that are impossible to achieve. These images are sold to women by the anti-aging industry and through invasive aesthetic treatments that use silicon and other materials as part of an infinite self-improvement project. In contrast, the artist offers the viewer thought-provoking combinations that are both defiant and ironic, while seeking to restore women’s agency/sovereignty over their bodies and their existence.
Avital Katz
Exhibition Curator
