"#NSFW: Bodies Explores What It Means To Be Human
In 1959, the great theologian Paul Tillich wrote in his catalogue essay for the “New Images of Man” show at MoMA: “Whenever a new period is conceived in the womb of the preceding period, a new image of man pushes towards the surface and finally breaks through to find its artists.”
Each of the artists in the current show “#NSFW: Bodies,” on view at Vered Gallery in East Hampton through April 7, is grappling with what it means to be human in his or her particular moment in time.
Co-curated by Janet Lehr and Damien A. Roman, “#NSFW: Bodies” (for the uncool like me, NSFW is an acronym for Not Safe For Work) is an aesthetically complex panorama of nudes and portraiture spanning the early 20th century to the present day. Painting, printmaking, photography and sculpture are represented by forms that have been distorted, abstracted, eroticized, mutilated, savaged and cartoonized.