Monday, May 12, 2008

Phallus / Foetus
Art, Gender, Modernity

Kofi Fosu Forson

Crazy Cock is a work of literature by Henry Miller. Louise Bourgeois is known for a particular well-sized phallic sculpture. In architecture, skyscrapers represent a notion of modernity. Robert Mapplethorpe defiantly used the male phallus to depict his sexuality.

Why then is the male as a phallic symbol revered and the female given her pubis is subjected to commercialization, pornography and pregnancy?

In art, architecture and design the truest form of precision is made by depicting a line. The angular form is modernized when subjected to incongruity. This has served as a basis for Cubism and some of the most spectacular works of architecture.

A circle, at once relevant to a spherical object, gives off notions of femininity. Intellectually it would suggest balance, complete thought and centeredness. Such is the regard brought upon the female. In essence, it’s much the reference to nature, the cycle of life…birth to infinity.

Interestingly, the phallic symbol suggests rigidity and stoicism and as a sexual organ it adheres to a theory that the testicular muscle exists singularly outside of the physical body, making it an entity upon itself.

Somehow the male phallus is an example of authority whereas the female pubis certifies a purified nature of birth: - this being its utmost certainty. And yet, circumstances that surround the birthing process are trivialized in the marketing of the female.

The nuclear family has undergone an outright shift making it probable for the female to seek independency outside of the family structure. She then denounces her traditional role of mother and seeks self-control and an ingrained identity.

Georgia O’Keefe’s coital depictions of flowers are pronounceable in this the modern age. Politically it celebrates the character of the female gender not as dependent but rather independent in her sexuality, politics and pubis: - that of which has undergone a renaming from the medicinal word “vagina” to the hardcore usage of “pussy.”

Pussy gives off the notion that sex somehow has been replaced by fucking. Currently society is drenched in a mild euphoria. Circumstances surrounding it stem from association and disassociation of intellectual and sexual identity common in every person.

This mind-bending evaluation is null and void in most people present in today’s society. We are driven by political and sexual prowess as humans. There’s no reverence for language. In order to achieve it we must decide for ourselves what angle to take. Progress starts with the individual. Marketing a new language takes a lifetime.

Conclusively the target is not the female. It’s the entranced notion of “pussy.” Pornography and art is the most pragmatic use of language as an enlightened source. This can be found in lyrics by Lou Reed, works of literature by Kathy Acker and the depiction of sexuality in Vanessa Beecroft’s interventions.

Pussy therefore may regress in its nature to embrace the deplorable term “cunt.” Metaphorically it represents an ideology, much of which can be found in fashion. Madonna’s bustier was legendary then. Demi Moore’s nude pregnant body on the cover of Vanity Fair was revolutionary.

Exposed navels almost revealing the pubis or flesh leading to the buttocks made visible as a crack or line are common examples in the semiology of fashion. Certainly there isn’t an outright attempt to defame culture within society. But much as Hugh Hefner created Playboy, the reason behind our transgressions is a matter of lifestyle and the purported messages put forth by the media.

Pornography and art became seedier from the earlier gentleman clubs and sex magazines. Larry Flint begot Al Goldstein and Ugly George led to amateur sex videos on the internet.

Overall the underbelly of society is driven by politics, money and pornography. Redeeming the nature of the beast will require a reintroduction of language. Such is the current culture where a heightened sense of articulation needn’t rely on an MFA or PHD.

All it takes is an embrace of language…“To arrive at the cup to withdraw the breast, much the same to lift a pen to write the very same word in another vernacular.”

Like modern lovers, we shed the skin of past lives to renew ourselves in future interventions. The modern ideology is a form of enlightenment. Some find it in pornographic sex, art, politics, fashion and music.

Overall, our conscience details the programmable notion of sex as hyper-real or through promiscuity.

Language resurfaces with each generation. There has never been a better time to seduce, from politicians to intellectuals.

Art, determined as philosophy will prove the thought process in every vault.

The future is now.

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