It captures the interaction femininity and non-binarity have within myself so well. The right figure is femininity or female identity within myself holding up non-binarity and helping it stand as it is more easily defined and less complex to describe. The left figure changes texture and materials a lot and is hard to describe and grasp and really caputures how hard it is for me to grasp my own idea of non-binarity. And I like that they’re hugging and interacting because that’s what I feel like as well.
I saw it in the exhibition “Queere Moderne” at Kunststammlung NRW. Here’s more info about the artwork on their website: https://sammlung.kunstsammlung.de/en/works/3507
love Max Ernst, and this is such a great interpretation of the work!
Here’s a piece of artwork that resonated with my experience of gender:
Here’s a transcript of the blurb:
Reflecting on societal expectations to be a nurturing and protective mother, Louise Bourgeois described Nature Study as a self-portrait that explores themes of alienation, family, gender, identity, and maternity. The multi-breasted, headless creature pays homage to a number of ancient guardian deities including Cybele, the mother-goddess who symbolizes fertility in Phrygian and later Greco-Roman ancient mythology.
Bourgeois produced the figure in a variety of different media, including bronze, marble, porcelain, rubber, and wax. Among Bourgeois’s most iconic works, Nature Study emphasizes evolution, metamorphosis, and hybrid ways of being that blur animal and human, male and female – concerns central to her sculptural production.
For me it conveyed aspects of being dehumanized and animalistic which relates to the way I experience my gender as making me monstrous or sub-human; the sculpture obviously has elements evoking both male and female sexes, but overall feels female. Just struck me as deeply relatable.
Very interesting, thank you for sharing! It’s interesting to me that this artwork does not provoke any thought about gender in me, it’s too alien for my perception I think. I think it’s too animalistic and I need the humanoid form to relate, I’m guessing. Love how different perceptions of art are.
