Maureen Connor and Thinner Than You: An Exploration of Female Body Image and Sexuality

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1 Maureen Connor and Thinner Than You: An Exploration of Female Body Image and Sexuality Moriah Lutz-Tveite ARTH Professor Bagnole November 14, 2011

1 They are everywhere: On the runways of Paris, on the magazine cover at the grocery store checkout, and on billboards overlooking the commutes of millions.

2 1 They are everywhere: On the runways of Paris, on the magazine cover at the grocery store checkout, and on billboards overlooking the commutes of millions. Thin women, be they models, movie stars, or gym addicted suburbanites, are omnipresent in modern American culture. Yet, Maureen Connor s Thinner Than You still creates a stir among viewers as it serves as a metaphor for the pressure American women are under today for extreme thinness. 1 Thinner Than You (1990) by Maureen Connor This piece of art is physically nothing more than a thin netted dress on a hanger and strung to the ground, but imagining the kind of woman who could fit in its 10-inch waistline leaves the audience breathless. 2 Such a woman would barely be capable of any basic functions let alone any kind of manual labor. Connor s creation is no doubt an extreme representation of an obsession with thinness. However, the piece provokes so many questions about what it means to be a desirable woman in modern day America. How does style and fashion relate to a woman s worth? How does a focus on body image shift the ideal of female sexuality? Is this kind of sexuality used to empower women or 1 Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, The Body, in Themes of Contemporary Art: 2 Maura Egan, Now Showing: Dress Codes Exhibit, New York Times T Magazine, August 3, 2009, Style section.

3 2 make them merely objects of desire? This paper will seek to answer these questions and explore how the work of Maureen Connor is furthering the discussion of body image in relation to female desirability. Maureen Connor is no stranger to artwork dealing with the body and sexuality. In 1987, she created Woman, a piece of art made of wax, cement, and cloth that had been molded from a sex doll. Connor claims the most shocking part of working with the sex doll was seeing the female body reduced to breasts and orifices. 3 Connor found herself wanting to work against this perception of the female form as much as possible She next turned her study to internal organs and began casting them in glass in order to celebrate their beauty. 4 This move to focus on elements of the human body such as the heart and liver that are genderless can certainly be seen as a reaction to the overwhelming amount of attention paid to women s outer appearances. Connor does not seek to deny women their gender but rather allow them to celebrate their body in a non-sexual and nonobjectifying manner. In 1998, Connor exhibited an installation piece titled Love (at first) Site: The Morning After Game. Viewers of this piece were first treated to the sights of a romantic 1920s silent film before progressing to a room made to resemble a 1950s bachelor pad with recordings of a man seducing a woman in France. Finally, the audience comes upon the scene of a modern one-night stand in which printing on a wall describes the encounter as a game with a clear winner and loser. 5 The progression depicted in this piece seems 3 Amanda Means, Approximating the body: art gropes in fashion s pockets, BOMB Magazine 29 (Fall 1989): Means: Mira Schwirtz, Love (at first) Site: The Morning After Game- Maureen Connor at Curt Marcus, Flash Art (International Edition) (May/June 1998): 98.

4 3 bound to leave the viewer a bit disappointed with the lack of romance often found in modern day trysts. Perhaps this can be viewed as a positive step forward for women, as they are no longer merely an innocent girl being seduced but an equal decision maker in their sexual activity. However, in combination with Connor s other works including 1990 s Thinner Than You, I believe there is another point of view. Connor s aforementioned comments about the sex doll in conjunction with Thinner Than You point to an artist who sees women as being turned into merely products of society to be used at will. Maybe after all, the woman in Connor s morning after scenario is no more than a pawn in a game who yields no more power than women of earlier eras. Connor considers the human use of clothing to be quite the paradox. She takes the example of the loincloth as the earliest representation of clothing meant to both protect the body from outside filth and conceal the genitals or dirty part of the human body. 6 Translating this understanding of the cultural purpose of clothing to Thinner Than You provides an illuminating new outlook on the piece s meaning. If we can imagine the dress stretched on a female body, it would no doubt conceal some elements of the female figure. However, the perforated nature of the netting and snug fitting silhouette would in many ways make the woman s body appear more sexualized than if she was completely nude. From this standpoint, Thinner Than You is not only about the drive to be thin but the cultural imperative to dress in a manner that actually reveals what it claims to conceal. 6 Means: 17.

5 4 Connor is far from alone within the art world in her exploration of clothing, fashion, and the human body. In fact, Thinner Than You was exhibited in 1993 as part of Fall From Fashion at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. 7 Two other pieces in this exhibition dealing with sexuality and clothing were Grope and Frontal View, Geoffrey Beene Fashion Show. Grope was created by artist Janine Antoni and consists of the exposed pockets of several pairs of work pants stitched together. Antoni transformed the traditionally male construct of pants into something feminine by softening their structure but also by placing them in the corner of the room, rather than the center, the presumptive seat of power. 8 We understand this placement as a means of communicating that although in some ways women have made gains in power, they are still not viewed within the public sphere as the equal of men. Grope (1990) by Janine Antoni Frontal View, Geoffrey Beene Fashion Show is a photograph taken by Zoe Leonard that captures a model s revealing underwear as her skirt blows up and she is exposed to the audience sitting below her. Leonard s pieces juxtaposes the soft and 7 Richard Martin, Approximating the body: art gropes in fashion s pockets, New Art Examiner 21 (September 1993): Martin: 16.

5 feminine clothes being shown on the Geoffrey Beene runway with the overtly sexual image seen due to the traditional set up of a fashion show that places the audience at eye level with the model s

6 5 feminine clothes being shown on the Geoffrey Beene runway with the overtly sexual image seen due to the traditional set up of a fashion show that places the audience at eye level with the model s genital area. 9 Frontal View, Geoffrey Beene Fashion Show (1990) by Zoe Leonard Amelia Jones and Andrew Stephenson explain another reason the work of Leonard, Antoni, and Connor may be appealing to modern audience in Performing the Body/Performing the Text. They argue that we seek to interpret that which revolves around the body for its fetishistic, obsessive allure. 10 The audience is drawn to work inspired by the body and sexuality because they find themselves easily able to relate to the piece especially when an actual human form is not present within the artwork. 11 Yet, this begs the question of why the vast majority of art that focuses on the body is concentrated on the female form. Surely, the male population must want to connect with their identity through art. 9 Martin: Amelia Jones and Andrew Stephenson, ed., Performing the Body/Performing the Text (London; NewYork: Routledge, 1999): Jones and Stephenson: 3.

7 6 Perhaps the answer to this dilemma can be found in Charles Garoian s Performing the Museum. By pairing the concepts of performing the autobiography and performing the museum culture, one can see why contemporary artist s continue to focus on the female body. Garoian defines performance of the autobiography as a viewer s personal, anecdotal knowledge by which they creative narratives to represent their experiences in art. 12 He views performing museum culture as learning the academic and aesthetic codes of art historical research and writing. 13 As both popular modern advertisements and classical artwork are filled with references to female sexuality it is no wonder the modern museum continues to be inundated by the same. However, works like Thinner Than You seem to turn tradition on its head. Instead, of furthering the image of women as sex object, Connor s work allows the public to sympathize with the plight of women. As the performance of the autobiography is inevitably shifted through such artwork, one can only hope the performance of museum culture will soon follow. Thinner Than You is clearly about the pressures of society on women to conform to a specific image and base their self worth off of their size. However, in the context of Connor s other work there is much more than this one idea to be gleaned from this piece. Connor believes that clothing plays an essential role in creating identity. Unlike some feminists, she does not believe that clothes make the man but rather what we choose to put on our backs is an integral part of our identity along with our other actions. 14 Therefore, women do not have to let their fashion sense overtake their identity, nor 12 Charles R. Garoian, Performing the Museum, Studies in Art Education 42 (Spring 2001): Garoian: Nina Felsin, Women s Work: A Lineage, , Art Journal 54 (Spring 1995): 78.

8 7 should they feel the need to dress in a provocative manner. Women can understand their wardrobe as a pathway of other identities to explore, but they should never feel obligated to associate with a particular identity because of their clothing. 15 In answer to the questions posed at the beginning of this paper. The fashion world has often been guilty of portraying only a singular body type as beautiful. Whether that be the curvy Amazons of the 1990s or the waifish models of the 2000s, such a narrow definition of desirability is damaging to females. By focusing on body image, female sexuality becomes far too much about a woman s ability to look a certain way rather than her other skills as a sexual partner including an aptitude to connect on an emotional level with her partner. Therefore, we can assume this kind of sexuality is not beneficial to women. It may give them the power to demand sex from men at any time, but it does not empower them to have confidence in their entire identity. Maureen Connor s Thinner Than You in partnership with her other work as well as the work of Leonard and Antoni help the contemporary art audience see the flaws in how women are treated as little more than a shell to be dressed in a manner to portray their value as a sexual object. 15 Felsin: 78.

9 8 Bibliography Egan, Maura. Now Showing: Dress Codes Exhibit. New York Times T Magazine, August 3, 2009, Style section. Felshin, Nina. Women s Work: A Lineage, Art Journal 54 (Spring 1995): Garoain, Charles R. Performing the Museum. Studies in Art Education 42 (Spring 2001): Jones, Amelia and Andrew Stephenson, ed. Performing the Body/ Performing the Text. London; New York: Routledge, Martin, Richard. Approximating the body: art gropes in fashion s pockets. New Art Examiner. 21 (September 1993): Means, Amanda. Maureen Connor. BOMB Magazine 29 (Fall 1989): Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel. The Body. In Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art After New York: Oxford University Press, USA, Schwirtz, Mira. Love (at first) site: the morning after game Maureen Connor: Curt Marcus." Flash Art (International Edition) (May/June 1998): 98.

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