I don’t believe Amanda Palmer thought she could lure people into wanting to fuck her with these pictures….

Posted by: sj7g09 on: December 5, 2009

• In: Artists | inside/outside & self-directed
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I stumbled across these images of Amanda Palmer, as one tends to when typing “Amanda Palmer naked” into Google. In the current media state, it seems like a lot of photographs of naked celebrities are appearing online, but every case I’ve read of so far cites that the photos were leaked by someone who managed to hack the celebrity’s phone – I like that Amanda says nothing of the sort, never trying to excuse it. In fact, she posted the images herself on her Twitter account.

I’ve found the reaction to them very interesting, and something that has really influenced my line of thinking at the moment. It seems that peoples’ only comments on them are that she was wrong to post them because ‘she has hairy armpits’ or ‘she looks like a man’ – one post goes as far as to say “I have no idea why she  has all that writing on her and I definitely [have?]  no idea why she is naked with hairy armpits” and “I can’t find one thing sexy about [any?] of these pics and the only words I can actually read on her awesome self is NO WAY. I think that’s pretty funny because there is NO WAY I would ever bang her. I don’t care if she [is?]  famous or not”. This just shows that women aren’t able to use their bodies for artistic endeavour, because people just assume that they are doing it for attention, or validation – it totally ignores any artistic intention, instead thinking that all naked self-portraits can only have the intention of showing yourself as a sexual object for people to objectify and fantasise about. I’m sure if these images were intended in this way, they wouldn’t have the writing all over her – don’t people have the sense to think that maybe the writing is an important part of the image and gives it some sort of context, rather than ignoring it completely? It’s a pretty big part of the image – she has writing all over her body, it must be there for a reason.

It seems like images like this are sneered at because they are judged as sexual imagery rather than anything else, and it’s apparently just not ok to use your body if it may be interpreted as for attention, and certainly not if you’re not conventionally attractive. Women are generally judged on their physical appearance – they are seen as decorative objects, ornaments – and their bodies are the main way of conveying who they are, for example through fashion, as a lot of judgements are made according to first impressions based on appearance. Therefore, it should make sense for women to use their bodies as a means to express themselves in art, using this objectification to transmit ideas, conforming to the idea that the female body is constantly looked at and read into, but subverting it by being aware of this and using it to make a point. Generally art using the female body has negative connotations, firstly by being written off as “feminist” as most female art is, but also that the artist is discredited for using their body, with it being seen as immature or attention-seeking, but artists should be free to use their body in any way they wish. Unfortunately, people don’t seem to understand these sentiments, so using your body in art becomes very difficult, as it leaves you open to so much judgement and criticism, possibly not even of your art, but of your appearance, intentions or character.

I started to look at Palmer’s work in terms of Grotowski’s theory of the “holy actor”, “a man who works in public with his body, offering it publicly… a person who, for his art, climbs upon the stake and performs an act of self-sacrifice”, as I feel that this is precisely what she does. She is criticised for her work or how she presents ideas, but is willing to sacrifice herself to the audience rather than attempting to sell herself to the audience. I believe that this sort of sacrifice can be integral in art – some times you have to suffer somewhat to get your point across, particularly in using your body in art. Ideas shouldn’t be dumbed down for the sake of protecting yourself or other people. Art shouldn’t have to change to accomodate ignorance, ignorance and attitudes need to be changed so that art doesn’t have to be.