Paul Kasmin Shop - W. 27th St

Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming summer exhibition of sundry flesh from July 9-September 19, with an opening reception on July 9th, 6-8PM.
Naked is not nude nor “naturalist” - it is altogether more intriguing, predicating perhaps a state of desire, whether narcissistic or voyeuristic, that sense of being naked as an active, self-conscious sense of heightened awareness if not arousal. While nudity is continuously represented in the history of art, the classical nude often pretends to itself that it is not just plain naked. Of course, anyone can tell the difference, can feel it on their own skin indeed. While  udity, in its mythological and even mystic beauty is to be appreciated, this exhibition will present the naked – traditionally arousing, interpreted by myriad artists.

With no further beating around the bush, this is a show of males and females without clothing, surely not inherently contentious at this stage of the game – we suppose. As magazine publishers have long established, women love to look at images of women, and so do men. Women like to look at themselves, and they like to be looked at; they like to be looked at looking at themselves. And often they are beautiful in all this. An exhibition of art works celebrating physically attractive naked females clearly cannot be called misogynistic, maybe just plain ole sexist, or “Post-Sexist” or “New Sexist.” Alas, male flesh shall sully the haremic purity of this exhibition, but appropriately enough in Paul Kasmin’s backroom. Hung separately, this concurrent exhibition is entirely devoted to just one outstanding part of the masculine anatomy, a jamboree entitled in spirit “Size Matters.”

Masterworks, as it were, abound, from the likes of David LaChapelle, Jack Pierson, and Mark Ryden, or Baroque maestro Nicolaes Berchem. There will surely be fine things from such impeccable pre-post-feminists such as Pablo Picasso, and popstars Mel Ramos, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann. Also expect the guilt-ridden inclusion of such
female luminaries as Cecily Brown, Louise Bourgeois, Lee Miller, and Kate Millett. This is the one of many exhibitions curated by the ridiculously sublime Adrian Dannatt.