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Reversing the roles
>- Continued from page 27
"Where does the majority of their money
come from?"
All 10 of Sherer's works in the Birming
ham show were censored, including one
that, he says, "when you look at it, you will
not be able to understand why it got cen
sored... It's inside of a natural history mu
seum. It's a woman holding a camera, pho
tographing inside one of those dioramas.
There's a scene in the background. Way off
in the bushes you can see that there's a man
back in there. All you see is a comer of his
shoulder and his neck and head. You don't
see anything else. The idea behind that
painting was it is the reversal of what's hap
pened in art history—men have always been
depicted as being identified with culture,
with technology; women have always been
identified with nature. All I did was flip that.
The woman was erect, in control of the tech
nology. She represented culture and ad
vancement."
Sherer finds ironic amusement at hav
ing his work now censored even by women.
"I am very well versed in feminist politics,"
Sherer says. "I know what constitutes sex
ism. That's what my work is all about. Her
censoring my work and the way she did it—
it is the finest example of my thesis I've had
so far. She's on my side and doesn't even
know it!"
Sherer's thesis is that throughout art
history, there has always been a sexist ap
proach to nudes. Females are, males are not.
Or if they are, they are the idealized figures.
His radical approach evolved when all his
early ideals of what constitutes art and art
history were crushed.
"I began to notice, as I carefully studied
art history, that women have very valid
complaints," Sherer says. "Art history has
treated them wrongly. It had never really
dawned on me to discover how men had
been mistreated. I assumed that since art
had been controlled by the patriarchy, that
men would not be mistreated at all. I was
very, very wrong. Men have been treated
horribly by men, especially by Christianity.
The mere fact that 97 percent of all the male
nudes throughout the entire history of art
are of the Baby Jesus. That offends me
deeply."
Sherer believes historical depictions of
men in art are so unrealistic that "we can't
possibly live up to that ideal. Ultimately it
hurts all of us.
"If you have a big art history book at
your house, one that covers the whole his
tory of art, flip through it and count the
times, for instance, you even find an image
of a man with chest hair," Sherer says.
"Name one. You can't. There actually were
a few—very few—paintings of men with
chest hair, but they were paintings of satyrs,
which was the high culture's put-down of
all it considered gross and animalistic. Men
are hairy. Men do not always stand around
with swords in their hands, being erect. Men
lie down. There are no paintings about men
being comfortable."
Borrowing from an early 19th century
style ("we call it appropriation—it's a eu
phemism for the historical rip-off I'm do
ing"), Sherer has turned art history on its
ear, simply by substituting men for women
(and vice versa). That constitutes the thrust
of his next major effort.
"I'm doing an experiment right now
here in Atlanta with Sheila Ray," Sherer
noted. "She's a wonderful person. She's
pretty popular in the gay community. She's
a lesbian and an actress and a professional
artist model. We're taking some standard
ized poses from art history—something as
simple as an erect figure standing behind a
prostrate figure. We're trying these differ
ent poses to find out, in what way, if we re
verse the gender, is it sexist?"
First, of course, Sherer is anxiously
awaiting the arrival of his ten paintings back
from Birmingham. Their next stop, he
hopes, is an exhibition at the Lowe Gallery,
where he serves as director. "We want to put
it up here, just as it was, and see what the
reaction in Atlanta would be."
One thing is for sure, he can't censor
himself. "Yeah," Sherer jokes, "but I guess
by 1996 I'm not going to feel good if I'm not
in a murk again."