THE POSTMODERN NUDE

by Corey Postiglione

subject for art. The nude as a genre of artistic practice has been 

represented in a myriad of styles and media down through the ages 

from the Egyptian’s severe stylizations, to the ancient Greek’s 

idealized figures, to the naturalism of the Romans. This fascination 

with the human body continues to be explored even into the 21st 

century and the epoch commonly referred to as the postmodern.

So what is it that constitutes a postmodern representation of the

female or male nude, that classical subject that has so endured 

over time?  What establishes this new visual and philosophical view 

of the nude figure that in some way breaks with the past of this 

well rehearsed subject, and even goes beyond the recent 

experimentations of the modern tradition?  

There are certainly seminal moments in the history of the nude 

that stand as benchmarks that help to shed light on changing 

attitudes of figurative representation. It is interesting that a painting 

of a nude woman should stand as one of the most important works 

signaling the modern movement.  In the Salon of 1865, Manet’s 

“Olympia,” so shocked the French public with its dramatic pictorial

innovations and provocative content, that later critic and historian 

Clement Greenberg would refer to it (and Manet in general) as the

beginning point of modern art.

Early in the 20th century, Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” 

(1907) broke new ground in both form and content, and singularly 

initiated the most important movement of that time: Cubism. Picasso’s 

women, with their radically altered anatomies and the introduction of 

African masks, swept in a whole new visual language for representing 

the human form.

In the early 1950s, Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning

even surprised Greenberg with his reintroduction of the female figure

in his “Woman Series.”  In fact, what inspired de Kooning to paint 

this series of strong and frightening women was his interest in the 

prehistoric “Venus” figures as he referred to them.  Of Course, 

de Kooning’s women were painted in his signature style of aggressive

painterly gesture so that the figures seem to emerge from the brush 

strokes.

So we have witnessed many approaches to the nude as a subject over 

time with many epochal changes in style and attitude.  With the 

ushering in of what we now term the postmodern we aught not be too

surprised that the genre continues to be investigated by a new breed 

of artists in new ways.

What could we rightly call the new features of the postmodern nude?  

There are several categories I would submit as possible ways of

structuring this new sensibility.  Firstly, there is the penchant

of postmodernism to critique certain modernist tropes.  For example, 

questions surface: how have women been represented in the past, not 

only in art but in the modern media of film, and television, and mass 

culture in general—ie., so-called men’s magazines (Playboy, Penthouse), 

the fashion world, glamour mags, etc.  Pop artist Tom Wesselman mined 

much of this cultural turf in the 1960s with his “Great American Nude” 

series in which he depicted advertising’s use of the female figure as a 

sex object to sell products.  In fact many historians and critics position 

the beginning of the postmodern with the advent of Pop art and its 

relentless forays into mass culture.

In the 1980s, artists such as Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman 

created works that explicitly deconstructed the status and 

representation of women in society.  Sherrie Levine, through a series 

of overtly appropriated works (she copied them) of famous male artists, 

has challenged the hegemony of the modernist cannon and its exclusive

Men’s club. Another tendency of postmodernism is its use of pastiche,

that is, its endless borrowing of past styles only to empty them of 

their original meaning.  (Noted cultural historian Fredric Jameson has 

described pastiche as blank parody.)   

Eric Fischl has successfully returned to Manet’s quasi realist style to

comment on suburban angst and the ennui of sexual practice in the late

20th century.  David Salle explores images of misogyny in his overtly 

graphic paintings of women in compromising positions (often his 

significant other).  

What makes the postmodern nude interesting and problematic is its 

ambiguities:  Salle has been charged by some feminist critics as 

exploiting the female image. Postmodern themes of anachronism and 

nostalgia inform the strange paintings of Odd Nerdrum with his faux 

historic and mythic scenes of some past (or future) parallel universe.  

A host of other painters like Ronald Cohen and Marino Marini have 

been drawn to ersatz historicism in the style of Italian Mannerists.

An even younger generation of figure painters has emerged to further 

explore the possibilities.  John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage have 

morphed a hybrid style of Pop and Neoclassicism  (read Jacques 

Louis David), romance novel illustration and Rococo (Wateau) to 

create paintings that are at once lush and erotic, campy and satiric.  

Cecily Brown has revived de Kooning’s tact with her large abstract 

expressionistic like canvases that depict, albeit abstractly, 

writhing orgiastic bodies involved in numerous sexual situations.

This exhibit focuses mainly on 2D media, drawing, prints, painting, 

and photography, for logistical reasons.  There are obviously many 

works in other diverse media, both sculptural and time-based art 

that reflect recent developments with the nude as subject.

Nevertheless, we have brought together what we feel is an exciting 

collection of works that from one of the aforementioned perspectives 

exemplifies the current interpretations of this enduring subject.

Corey Postiglione is a painter, critic, curator, and teacher living in Chicago.  

In addition to a Professor of Art History and Critical Theory at Columbia College 

Chicago.  His writing has appeared in numerous publications including Artforum,