art

Naked and Adorned Part II: Aphrodite and Venus – posted in Boulder, CO Nov 8 2024

The Birth of Venus, Alexandre Cabanel, 1863, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

The 19th century painting above of the birth of Venus  by Cabanel in the Musée d’Orsay is monumental, 7 1/2 feet wide. I have not reincarnated this painting (yet). I know it is sexist but still fabulous. I am moving all around in time and geography from ancient Sumer and Babylonia (with the goddesses Inanna and Ishtar) to ancient Greece and the island of Cyprus, sometime around 1000 to 800 BCE, when the Greek goddess Aphrodite rose out of the Mediterranean as a fully formed and most beautiful goddess. Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, love (ALL LOVE), passion, pleasure (and much more …), has been a favorite goddess of mine for years. She is a primal goddess. I choose the story of her birth out of the sea as portrayed in Hesiod’s Theogony (written 8th – 7th century BCE), and I have written about it on my blog. Here is an excerpt:

“This is quite the elemental image and idea—beautiful Aphrodite emerges fully formed, born of Ouranus’s castrated giant genitals. The ‘foam’ from which Aphrodite arises is the semen of her father, Ouranus the god of the Sky. Her half-brother Chronos is the perpetrator of this heinous deed, castrating his own father at the bequest of his Mother Earth (Gaia). Aphrodite is gestated in this matrix / fluid of her father’s testes. She arises from the sea foam / seminal fluid with her two companions: Eros, the primordial god of Love and Sex, and Himeros, god of uncontrollable and ravishing Desire. One of Aphrodite’s Greek names is Philommedes which means both ‘genital loving’ and ‘smile loving.’”

 So-called “Ludovisi Throne,” Thasian marble, Greek artwork, ca. 460 BC (authenticity disputed). Museo Nationale Romano of Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

The ancient sculpture above (perhaps) presents Aphrodite rising from the sea, this time assisted by the Horae, goddesses of time and the seasons who are said to have been the first to dress and adorn Aphrodite.

My goddesses met Luís and me at OBRAS a few weeks ago to assist us. Here are two of our early-morning shots. We danced, sang and smoked cigarettes, the fun goddesses.

Works in Progress – Aphrodite and the Horae series, color digital images, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Branco, October 2024.

Cnidus Aphrodite, Roman copy after a Greek original of the 4th century BCE, marble. Original elements: torso and thighs; restored elements: head, arms, legs and support (drapery and jug). Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

While the Horae were the first to dress Aphrodite, the famed Greek sculptor Praxiteles (ca. 300 BCE) was the first to (almost) fully undress her. The Cnidus Aphrodite, also known as the Aphrodite of Knidos, above is one of the many Roman copies of the original statue made by Praxiteles around 350 BCE. Praxiteles’s sculpture of Aphrodite was the first fully nude Greek sculpture of a woman (or a goddess). Greek artists had been making nude sculptures of men for centuries before. This Aphrodite is monumental—more than six feet tall—and it was reproduced and copied for many centuries all over the Mediterranean and beyond in different sizes and shapes. Copies of this statue and its kin are displayed in museums and collections all over the world. This sculpture also marks the invention of the Venus Pudica gesture, where the figure covers her pubic area with her hand (apparently a gesture of modesty). This gesture has appeared throughout time in paintings and sculptures. Does it suggest modesty? Or is it an alluring gesture, a sign of welcome? This representation diverges markedly from the representations of our proud Mesopotamian goddesses of love and sexuality (and much more …) Inanna and Ishtar.

“Men say that there are two unrepresentable things: death and the feminine sex.” (Hélène Cixous, 1978: 255)

 “‘Alas! alas! Where did Praxiteles see me naked?’, Aphrodite is said to have exclaimed upon seeing her own image in Knidos. In antiquity just as today Praxiteles’ Knidian Aphrodite was celebrated as the first realistic depiction of the nude female body. It was this particular Aphrodite statue that first presented to us the ‘Classical female beauty’ or the aesthetically ideal form of the female body. Indeed, the image of nude Aphrodite has become equated with high art, and seen as a sign for aesthetics not only for ancient Greece but also for the rest of Western art and culture. This archetype of femininity has become so ingrained in Western aesthetics that it has been placed in the position of a paradigm against which images from earlier and later periods and cultures are evaluated with regard to the degree that they approach, resemble, or fail to follow this ideal.”

(From Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia by Zainab Bahrani,from the chapter “That Obscure Object of Desire: Nudity, fetishism, and the female body,” pg. 70)

Jumping forward to the Renaissance, the many paintings and representations of Aphrodite and Venus were influenced by Greek and Roman ideals and representations of the goddess and of the female nude. It was a Western European sexist racist fad that has lasted about 600 years and counting.

Sleeping Venus, perhaps begun by Giorgione and finished by Titian, ca. 1510. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany.

The “Sleeping Venus” is believed to have been started by Giorgione at the end of his life and completed by Titian. The landscape is very Titianesque. This was apparently the first reclining nude of the Renaissance, and it launched the genre of the semi-erotic mythological pastoral. Venus is apparently unaware of our gaze. Again, is she modestly covering herself, or is she stroking herself??

Works in Progress – Venus series, color digital images, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Branco, October 2024.

Luís and I made a series of images of Venus in the landscape at OBRAS-Portugal a few weeks ago, with the reclining nude (and the rock!). I haven’t chosen final versions (of any of our recent images). I like the crouching Venus above or maybe she’s a cougar Venus.

Venus in Front of the Mirror, Peter Paul Rubens, 1614-1615. Liechtenstein. The Princely Collection.

The Rubens painting above, “Venus in Front of the Mirror,” portrays a seventeenth-century Western European sensibility surrounding sex, gender, race and power. The very blond and white Venus is flanked by a black female servant, who tends her golden tresses, and Cupid, who holds up her mirror. The goddess of love and sexuality looks outward from the mirror, very much aware of the viewers who gaze upon her. Her power rests in her recognition of her own beauty and sexuality and the effect of both upon the viewer.

I both love and question Rubens’s “Venus in Front of the Mirror,” as it relates to the HEROINES project and my work in general. For months before leaving for Portugal, I had envisioned myself embodying this same Venus in a performative photograph. I bought a blond wig, and I arranged to have my friends / models / goddesses from the Cortiço Artist Residency come work with Luís and me at OBRAS to create this image. When I first arrived at OBRAS several weeks ago, I ventured to the Saturday market in Estremoz and found an almost-perfect antique mirror. I imagined myself looking out of the mirror of Venus, my late-sixty-something-year-old body (and face) exposed. In so doing, I am reflecting upon the ways in which women’s sexuality has been represented (and misrepresented) over time and how my own sexuality and body consciousness are expressed. Making this image was and is empowering. It’s also a little scary to expose myself in all these nude images. My friends and models, Marta and Marta, my beautiful (younger) goddesses, support me in my vulnerability. This is both a technical image and a poetic image. Luís did a beautiful job with the lighting and the composition.

WIP – Venus in Front of the Mirror, color digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Branco, October 2024.

I am back at home now and posting this after the election. I have been writing and thinking about these goddesses and female power and our bodies and ALL of our rights that are now in great peril. F__K THE PATRIARCHY. We must mobilize, be warriors for the rights of ALL people.

Made in Portugal at the OBRAS Artist Residency – posted Sept 19, 2024 in Boulder, CO

 Woman Standing, Still, black-and-white digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2015.

Woman Standing, Still, above, is one of my favorite images that I made with photographer Luís Branco during my first trip to Portugal and to the OBRAS Artist Residency in the fall of 2015.  She (I) stands with her feet planted firmly on the ground, on the mountain of Evoramonte, with the spacious sky surrounding her (me). She (I) is obviously an older woman and a strong matriarchal archetype.

I am preparing to return to Portugal in October, to the OBRAS Artist Residency near Evoramonte in the Alentejo region of Portugal. This place is very special to me, as are the people I have met at OBRAS, especially the residency’s founders, Carolien van der Laan and Ludger van der Eerden. I am feeling sentimental and grateful for the work I have accomplished with photographer Luís Branco over the last nine years at OBRAS. I am posting ten of my favorite images here, all of which were made at OBRAS and in nearby Evoramonte, and which convey the special affinity I have for this place. Luís and I have produced A LOT of work over the last several years at OBRAS and at other residencies and places in Portugal and Holland, and we have been showing our work in both Portugal and the US all along the way. You can see more of this work on my website.

It all began in the fall of 2015, when I traveled to Portugal and to OBRAS as a resident for the first time. At the time, I was studying the work of the fabulous Portuguese conceptual and performance artist Helena Almeida (1934 – 2018). Inspired by Almeida, my intention in 2015 was to make performative photographic artworks with myself as the subject. I asked Ludger and Carolien to introduce me to a photographer with whom I could work while I was at OBRAS. They introduced me to Luís Branco, and we began working together, in the studio, across the hills and fields surrounding OBRAS and in and around the nearby castle of Evoramonte. Woman Standing, Still, above, is (still) one of my favorite images from that first work period with Luís in 2015.

Woman in the Pego do Sino, black-and-white digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2016.

I returned to OBRAS in the fall of 2016 to work with Luís once again. We spent time in the Pego do Sino (Canyon of the Bells), a magical canyon near OBRAS. In Woman in the Pego do Sino, above, I am swathed in black gauzy fabric, almost hidden in the rocky landscape. The black form of my body appears like an entrance into the earth. During this residency, Carolien and Ludger offered to curate a show of Luís and my works to date in the beautiful palácio in the nearby town of Estremoz. Following is a seven minute video that we made with videographer Rui Fernandez about that exhibition, REENCONTRANDO-A / MEETING HER AGAIN: An exhibition of Sherry Wiggins with Luís Branco, which took place in early 2017:

In the fall of 2017, I returned to OBRAS to work with Luís in various land and waterscapes. We made many images at different sites in the Alentejo: in canyons, in rivers, in lakes and in dry reservoirs. The title of the image below, Encarnado, refers to multiple things in Portuguese. Encarnado literally means the color red, but it also refers to the incarnation of another being. We made this image in the bottom of Pego do Sino, the dwelling place of a fierce goddess/deusa, according to my Portuguese friends.

Encarnado, color digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2017.

Encarnado was in the exhibit “Delirium” curated by Mark Sink at Redline Contemporary Art Center, Denver, CO, 2019. (photo by Robert Kitilla)

I returned to OBRAS-Portugal in the spring of 2019 to work with Luís yet again. Below are just a few of my favorite images from that time. These works demonstrate our continued connection with the landscape near OBRAS.

Woman, Rising, color digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2019.

Seat at Evoramonte, color digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2019.

I love Outside Woman, the black-and-white image below. Luís is shooting from inside the Casa Miradouro (the little house I stay in at OBRAS), and I am standing outside, swathed in a gauzy nude colored fabric, like a phantom goddess/ghost. The mountain of Evoramonte is visible in the background.

Outside Woman, black-and-white digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2019.

In 2021, Luís and I initiated our ongoing Heroines Project at OBRAS-Portugal. For this project, I have been researching and embodying various biblical, historic, literary and mythical female figures, and Luís has been photographing me. Our first heroines were the biblical figures Eve and Salome. Exit Paradise, below, was inspired by Eve’s banishment from paradise and includes a gorgeous marmeleira, or quince tree, which is located in the courtyard at OBRAS.

Exit Paradise I, color digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2021.

Exit Paradise I and II, installation at Seidel City, Boulder, CO, 2023. (photo by Robert Kitilla)

And I love the black-and-white image Salome at Sunset, below, with the mountain of Evoramonte in the background at sunset. These works, and many more, were shown in Boulder in 2023 as a part of the fabulous exhibit Exit Paradise at Seidel City.

Salome at Sunset II, black-and-white digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2021.

In spring of 2022, we put up The Mirror Between Us, a gorgeous exhibit in Evora, Portugal, curated by Ludger and Carolien. Margarida Branco and the municipality of Evora supported this exhibit, which was held in the beautiful Igreja de São Vicente in the center of Evora. This exhibit highlighted twenty-five performative photographs that Luís and I made in the Portuguese landscape between 2015 and 2019. The exhibit was originally scheduled for 2020 but was delayed due to covid. More than 4,000 people visited the exhibit over a two-month period. You can read about this exhibit and see the images on my blog:

https://sherrywigginsblog.com/2022/04/26/%EF%BF%BCwalk-through-the-exhibition-and-the-inauguration-of-the-mirror-between-us-at-the-igreja-de-sao-vicente-

Our work on the Heroines Project has progressed over the last few years at different locations in Portugal and Holland. In March of 2024, we were able to work for a few days at OBRAS-Portugal and at the Café O Emigrante in Evoramonte, and we shot some wonderful images of my heroine the Greek goddess Circe (from Homer’s The Odyssey) with several of our friends posing as Circe’s lioness companions and as Circe’s swine. In The Odyssey, Circe famously transforms Odysseus’s men into swine and later restores them to human form.

Circe and Her Companions, color digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2019.

Circe at the Bar, black-and-white digital image, Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2024.

As you can see, our work has become more theatrical with the Heroines Project. In October, Luís and I will be working at OBRAS-Portugal again. We will revisit my heroine Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality (and more …). We will also represent the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar (also a goddess of love, sexuality and war and more …). I am thrilled to be returning to OBRAS-Portugal, a place of incredible inspiration and productivity for me, and I am grateful for my creative partnership with photographer Luís Branco that emerged at OBRAS and continues to flourish.