Art

Exhibition of the month: Full Fat or Semi-Skinned?

Lauren Down | Tuesday 2 November, 2010 18:19

Image Courtesy of the artist and Next Level

Andrea Hasler’s installation presents a radical intrusion into the audience’s space as the artist confronts her own feelings of attraction and repulsion through the abjection of the female body and breast milk.

Central to the installation stands a hospital trolley that appears to be the basis for an organic-based contraption. On the lower level of the machine lies a repulsive, lumpy and seemingly oozing organ from which the breasts of the machine seem to feed. Despite the initial repulsion that greets the audience near to floor level, the overt breast-based imagery draws the audience in through its unique and varied connotations from comfort and fertility, lust and attraction, to motherhood and fetishism.

Constantly challenging the viewer, Hasler’s seemingly fleshy representations of the breasts initially appear inviting and vulnerable but are conflictingly studded with diamonds. The extravagance and exclusivity are emphasised by the use of silicon implants; plastic surgery is usually a luxury indulged by those who can afford it. As possibilities of modelling and perfecting the body’s surface have become endless as well as financially affordable, the question arises: how exclusiveness, decadence, wealth or the desire for an individually controlled and designed physicality can be expressed.

Hasler’s sculpted body parts conflate usual appearances as inner parts are turned outside and outwards parts are turned inside as she exerts power over her sexuality, over anyone that would objectify and fetishise the female body. This exhibition is thought provoking, and compelling in its psychological complexity. Until 10 Nov. Next Level Projects, 58 Hanbury Street, Liverpool Street, E1 5JL www.nextlevelprojects.org 020 7655 4350

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