Between Nudity and Society: 2

Nude art, mirror of oppression and space for rebellion

The art of the nude, long celebrated as one of the pinnacles of the artistic tradition, has a history that goes far beyond mere aesthetics: it is deeply rooted in power structures, social hierarchies and excluding norms. Behind the apparent universality of the nude bodies that adorn the canvases and sculptures of the great masters lies a profoundly patriarchal, classist and racist politics of the gaze. It is through this critical lens that nude art, far from being merely a tribute to human beauty, becomes a field of struggle and subversion. In this context, it is imperative to deconstruct these representations in order to give rise to new forms of reappropriation and resistance.

The classical nude, a mirror of structural oppression.

The Greco-Roman canon, often celebrated as a timeless aesthetic ideal. If we look closely at the sculptures of Praxiteles or Polyclitus, we understand that these perfect bodies - young, slender, muscular, white and masculine - actually embody a profoundly exclusionary social model.

These bodies are “capable bodies” - a concept that deserves to be explored in greater detail.

Through this notion of capability, the idealism of the male body is not just a question of aesthetic appearance: it is perceived as the active, dominant body, capable of acting, creating and conquering. Non-conforming bodies - female, racialized or fat - are either invisibilized, or represented as grotesque caricatures or symbols of weakness and powerlessness. The classic nude is not just an artistic form: it becomes a political construct that validates a social order in which only certain bodies are worthy of visibility and respect.

This hierarchy has been perpetuated down the centuries( even if aesthetic canons vary according to period and region, it is undeniable that the white model remains dominant in the world's arts and media. This dominance is the result of a colonial legacy that has imposed European aesthetic standards on a global scale, standards that are reinforced by systems of economic and media power. Yet voices such as those of feminist, decolonial and queer artists, as well as recent social movements, seek to deconstruct these models and rehabilitate bodily and racial diversity, offering avenues of resistance and reinvention).

The Renaissance, with artists such as Botticelli, Ingres and Courbet, only reinforced the instrumentalization of the female body. Figures such as Botticelli's Venuses or Ingres' odalisques are not just artistic subjects; they embody a heterosexual male gaze that transforms women into objects of visual pleasure. This reduction of women to objects is what Bell hooks calls “male gaze”, a gaze that fetishizes and objectifies, perpetuating gender inequality and patriarchal domination.

For me, nude art is a space for emancipation

Against this long tradition of objectifying representation, the feminist movements of the 1970s redefined the nude as a space for rebellion and emancipation. Artists such as Carolee Schneemann and Ana Mendieta used their bodies to denounce the violence of patriarchy and reclaim a distorted image. In her performance Interior Scroll (1975), in which she extracts a roll of paper from her vagina, Schneemann openly challenges the reduced, passive vision of the woman. Mendieta, meanwhile, inscribes her body in nature to address both colonial oppression and the violence of gender domination. These gestures, far from being trivial, are political acts. By reinvesting their bodies, these artists not only subvert the codes of classical art, they also show that the nude can be a terrain of struggle, memory and transformation.

Contemporary projects on social networks: Equally important is the way in which nude art is being reinvented today, particularly with the rise of social networks. In a world where instantaneous sharing and access to images are inherent to today's generation, artists and creators are exploring the political and social dimension of the naked body in radical ways. Social networks have become channels through which artists can redefine norms and celebrate diverse bodies, challenging traditional expectations of beauty, sexuality and gender. Online visual representation becomes an act of resistance and a means of asserting multiple identities.

Grossophobia: a persistent oppression

Today, grossophobia still structures our artistic and media representations. Modern society, obsessed with thinness, invisibilizes fat bodies, stigmatizing them while reducing them to grotesque or pathetic images. However, as art critic Dominique Baqué points out, “art has a responsibility to show what society hides”. Contemporary art, particularly through figures such as Beth Ditto, or the performers of the Venus s'épile tel la chatte collective, highlights these marginalized bodies and denounces the symbolic violence suffered by non-conforming bodies. Their performances and photographs do not simply seek to include these bodies in an existing canon, but rather to destroy this canon and construct a new, more inclusive one, where all bodies find their place. These artists are paving the way for a new form of nude, one that does not seek to conform bodies to an aesthetic ideal, but to celebrate their diversity and intrinsic dignity.

(Given the scope of the subject, it's difficult for me to deal with the issue of grossophobia without risking getting lost in its many facets. It's a theme that touches on so many aspects of our society - from the beauty standards imposed by the media to the history of marginalized bodies, from psychological issues to social, economic and professional discrimination - that you end up getting lost in the breadth of its ramifications. It's not an easy subject to tackle, but I try to do so thoughtfully and carefully. The forthcoming article will therefore be the fruit of careful reflection, and I hope to be able to offer an analysis that can shed light on this issue in a way that is both nuanced and relevant).

Racialized bodies, historically erased or exoticized, have also been relegated to a status of otherness or colonial eroticization. Delacroix's odalisques and the black figures in Manet's works are just a few examples of this dynamic. These bodies, often reduced to objects of desire or exotic figures, are caught up in the colonial European gaze, which appropriates them, possesses them and reduces them to otherness. However, contemporary artists such as Zanele Muholi and Kehinde Wiley are turning this colonial gaze on its head. Muholi, through her photographs of queer black people, fights for radical visibility, opposing dominant narratives that erase or distort the image of racialized bodies. Wiley, meanwhile, recovers the codes of classical painting to put black bodies back at the center of art history, restoring racialized subjects to a place in an artistic tradition that has long ignored or marginalized them.

(I talk a lot about “L'odalisque”, because for me it's an emblematic figure in the history of art, which has crossed the centuries by embodying “an ideal of feminine beauty” linked both to aesthetic canons and to the dynamics of power and desire that we're trying to deconstruct through the articles here. Originating in the Orient and popularized by Western art, this figure has taken on different meanings in different eras, but has always served as a mirror for the values and social norms of each period. The odalisque, a woman who is often nude, reclining or dozing, is a paradoxical figure: both an object of desire and a symbol of submission, luxury or freedom. However, through her evolution, she also reveals the tensions between male domination, aesthetic idealism and the representation of female bodies in art...a project arrives around Odalisque and rules).

To close article 2 The naked body has never been neutral. It has always reflected a society that strives to control, classify and oppress bodies. However, committed artists - whether feminist, decolonial or queer - have shown that this space of nudity can be reinvested, not only to denounce oppression, but also to imagine new ways of living together. The nude thus becomes a lever for social and political critique, a cry of revolt against dominant structures.

Art must not simply represent the world; it must transform it. And it's with this in mind that contemporary artists are reinventing the nude: no longer as a fixed object of contemplation, but as a dynamic reflection on the body, power and freedom. Through their works, these artists invite us to see, not a conformed and idealized body, but diverse, multiple and resistant bodies.