The Sirens’ Call
Judith Tannenbaum
Stuart Netsky’s exhibition, “Sirens,” provides an opportunity to contemplate the
artist’s latest sculptures and photo-based work while connecting them to objects
and installations he became known for in the early 1990s. Are there underlying
themes that recur twenty years later? Has his choice of subject matter, fabrication,
and presentation changed or stayed the same? Has the greater openness and
acceptance of gay identity affected Netsky’s approach to art and the core of his
artistic identity?
I worked closely with the artist more than two decades ago on an ambitious
exhibition, “Time Flies,” at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA).i The show
consisted of a wide range of elements: classical sculptures cast from aspirin, Valium,
vitamins, and other pharmaceutical products; flocked silkscreen prints based on
perfume advertisements but made with AZT and various drugs used to inhibit and
treat AIDS; a series of striking black-and-white fashion photographs of Netsky
posing in women’s clothing; and a multimedia installation that included gilded and
latex furniture, mirrors, household objects, televisions playing videotapes of
Hollywood movies, and a long list of other components. Despite the profusion of
parts and overwhelming HIV/AIDS epidemic that permeated much of the work, a
sense of order prevailed.
“Sirens” has been created at a very different time. HIV/AIDS has not disappeared,
but better education, research, and medical treatment have changed the landscape
so dramatically that its primary victims are no longer gay men in the U.S. and
Western nations.ii Although Netsky’s fear of AIDS may have lessened considerably,
the theme of mortality underlies both the new work and the old. Gender models and
sexual stereotypes embodied in famous works of art, fashion figures, and Hollywood
films also continue to play important roles for him. In “Time Flies,” symbols of male
beauty and strength represented by classical images of Apollo, Hercules, and David
were subjects for sculpture. Now, the focus is more on women in various guises—
ranging from the traditional goddesses of Greek mythology to modern-day
Hollywood goddesses, including Persephone, Aphrodite, Venus de Milo, Elizabeth
Taylor, Bette Davis, and Marilyn Monroe, as well as Modigliani’s elongated muses
and Picasso’s cubist Demoiselles d’Avignon.
Celebrities are juxtaposed or layered with images of iconic artworks. For instance,
an image of Marilyn Monroe (photographed by Bert Stern) may be covered with
vigorous abstract-expressionist brushstrokes a la de Kooning, or seen in tandem
with the refined phallic form of Brancusi’s Princess X. And Marella Agnelli
(photographed by Richard Avedon), the Italian princess, personification of style, and
art collector, whom Truman Capote labeled one of his swans, appears with
Brancusi’s elegant, long-necked Mademoiselle Pogany, a Modigliani portrait, or a
classic geometric Mondrian painting. Sometimes, the relationships seem inevitable;
in other works, though, the connections may shock.
Although Netsky considers deeply both the history of art and popular culture, his
juxtapositions are usually intuitive or, at least, they begin that way. The starting
point for a series of new work is an image of Jean Harlow by the Hollywood
photographer George Hurrell (1904–92), known for stylized, elegant pictures of
glamorous stars. Netsky takes the atmospheric quality of the Hurrell photos a step
further by covering his images with white hair spray, in the case of Harlow, so she
looks ethereal and angelic, or spraying an image of Joan Crawford, also by Hurrell,
with foundation makeup so that she seems to float in the clouds. Bette Davis is
similarly sprayed with foundation, but a gold shimmer is added to the makeup.
Netsky’s celebrity portraits muse about how we idolize human beings (who are
often ordinary or frail in actuality) and turn them into goddesses who never age.
How does Netsky’s adoration of icons of feminine glamour jive with the
mythological Greek sirens, sea nymphs whose bewitching song lured sailors to certain
death? The messages about women and men are complicated and fascinating. The
sirens were depicted as half human, half birds—with the heads or upper bodies of
women. Men fell under their spell and died. Adding complexity to the question, Netsky
was struck by a Gertrude Stein quote: “It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We
are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.” Stein equates the
pursuit of hope with the ancient siren who leads us to death if we follow her. The Greek
sirens took advantage of unsuspecting men, but Netsky has idolized Hollywood
sirens and goddesses since he was a teenager and continues to identify with their
beauty and glamour.
A new series of unique prints focuses only on the horizontal band of eyes of their
subjects—Frida Kahlo, Elizabeth Taylor, and Cary Grant, who is the lone male
singled out for attention in this exhibition, and epitomizes all that is debonair, suave,
and good-humored. Similarly eliminating the forehead, nose, mouth, hair, and so on,
Netsky crops the eyes of iconic artworks—a de Kooning Woman painting, Brancusi’s
sculpture, and Picasso’s cubist figures. This intense focus on eyes brings to mind the
critical writing of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey and others since the ‘70s, who
proposed and studied “the male gaze” and how it objectifies women.iii Without full
awareness of this intellectual discourse, Netsky has subconsciously absorbed it; his
work revisits the subject from a postfeminist and queer vantage point. What is the
patriarchal effect on viewers—male, female, gay, straight, transgender—since most
filmmakers and the protagonists of their films are heterosexual males? By and large,
female characters have been objectified as the subjects of the voyeuristic male
gaze—something “to be looked at.” Feminism and queer theory raised
consciousness about the psychological inequities created and perpetuated by the
straight male power structure in Hollywood (and Madison Avenue), but it’s still
difficult to counteract the effects with a female or queer gaze when women and gays
are still outnumbered. As a boy Netsky was tormented at school for being
effeminate, and took refuge watching old movies starring Joan Crawford and Bette
Davis, among others. These stars aged in real life and were flawed like the rest of us,
but in the movies they remain idealized and immortal. By applying makeup to their
images, Netsky restores them to the flesh in his attempt to bring them to life.iv
Among male celebrities, he was attracted to George Brent and Fred Astaire (Netsky
took tap dancing lessons as a child), but Clark Gable was much too macho to appeal
to him.
Marilyn Monroe, the unsurpassed Hollywood icon of sexuality and celebrity,
features prominently in a triptych of images: In one, she’s immersed in deep blue,
barely visible (like an Ad Reinhardt monochrome painting); in another, thick
brushstrokes of color obscure her face; and in a third, her hands cover her mouth
and she overlaps with Brancusi’s elongated Princess X. Is it because Marilyn’s
suffering was so public that Netsky can acknowledge her conflicting identities?
Notably different in its unmediated violence and emotional outburst is the blackand-white image of Elizabeth Taylor screaming at Richard Burton in the film Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The artist enlarges the image, but does not otherwise
manipulate or alter it. Despite the fact that the work is based on a movie still,
perhaps Netsky doesn’t want us to forget that the two stars were married to each
other in real life and would subsequently divorce (and then, later, remarry each
other). Is art imitating life or vice versa? Juxtaposed with this violent film
relationship is a kitschy wall relief of an idealized rococo couple that Netsky found
in a flea market; later, he coated it with red sign enamel in order to call attention to
the anger, passion, and pathos of the film relationship in Virginia Woolf that
contrasts with the foppish stylization of the figures in the relief.
A screaming Liz appears again, this time on a plate, in a film still from Suddenly, Last
Summer that captures the character’s reaction when she realizes that her cousin
Sebastian is being cannibalized by a band of young men. The horror of that moment
could not be more unlike the banality of a table setting. For the exhibition, Netsky
has produced more dishes, as well as silk scarves, pillows, and blankets—all with
photo images transferred onto them. Subjects again range from icons of art to
television and movie stars—including Disney’s Cinderella, “Charlie’s Angels,” Brad
Pitt, The Three Graces, and works by such modern masters as Lucio Fontana and
Picasso. What could be more disorienting than transposing imagery from serious art
forms to domestic products that are normally benign and banal?
Several striking, precariously balanced assemblages—created with objects found in
flea markets and purchased online (including reproductions of artworks, from
classical busts to sleek modernist forms)—round out the exhibition and remind us
of Netsky’s training as a sculptor. Sponges in brightly saturated colors pay homage
to the work of Yves Klein and also refer to women’s work and Netsky’s desire to
“take women out of the home.” The use of both male and female busts (Athena,
Venus de Milo, an Indian goddess) raises the subject of androgyny and underscores
the artist’s method of appropriating elements from various periods, cultures, and
styles of art. Netsky has always been a serious and astute shopper, evidenced here
by the range of objects he puts together—from the ideal beauty of Greek statues to
geometric metal elements that suggest twentieth-century constructivism and
minimalism, including a Mondrian tissue box. Simple black-marble bases or low
Japanese wooden stands support the oddly juxtaposed objects assembled one on top
of another. These sculptures are Netsky’s own goddesses and sirens. Incorporating
existing elements and altered parts, they are hybrids or conglomerates that merge
objects and ideas about which he is passionate. Individual parts are recognizable,
but the totality is a distinctly new form. Although he deals with such profound issues
as beauty, physical deterioration, and mortality, a current of humor underlies these
oddball relationships of sculptural parts.
Netsky’s approach to artmaking has remained remarkably consistent, from the
creation of “Time Flies” to “Sirens.” Through his personal investigation of popular
culture, high art, fashion, and products he loves and fantasizes about (from banal to
luxurious), he reveals values he deems inherent to our society, with all its foibles
and strengths, from the shallow and kitschy to the ethereal and sublime. If we follow
his example and learn to look below the surface of celebrity models and the seeming
triviality of common objects and images, we can discover who we are and what we
aspire to. We will not solve the conundrum of mortality, but our lives will be richer
for it.
Judith Tannenbaum, “Stuart Netsky: Time Flies,” exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia:
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, November 12, 1993–
January 16, 1994.
ii
The global epidemic has receded somewhat in recent years based on improved
prevention and treatment. Statistics for new infections and deaths, however, remain
high with Sub-Saharan Africa currently the hardest hit followed by South and
Southeast Asia.
iii
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, 1975.
iv
These and other comments are based on interviews with the artist at his studio, in
Philadelphia, on August 4 and November 1, 2014.
i