Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disgust

Hypatia 18 (4):23-41 (2003)
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Abstract

This essay examines an aesthetics of disgust through an analysis of the work of Scottish painter Jenny Saville. Saville's paintings suggest that there is something valuable in retaining and interrogating our immediate and seemingly unambivalent reactions of disgust. I contrast Saville's representations of disgust to the repudiation of disgust that characterizes contemporary corporeal politics. Drawing on the theoretical work of Elspeth Probyn and Julia Kristeva, I suggest that an aesthetics of disgust reveals the fundamental ambiguity of embodiment, allowing us to critically attend to the aesthetic and cultural objectification of the female body.

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10.1111/j.1527-2001.2003.tb01411.x

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Taking this deft self-description as a point of departure, I reflect as a feminist philosopher on feminist artist Jenny Saville's portrait of its author, Del LaGrace Volcano, together with a Saville self-portrait as a cosmetic surgery patient. 1 In this study of Matrix (1999, oil on canvas, seven feet by ten feet) and Plan (1993, oil on canvas, nine feet by seven feet), I analyze how Saville's artistic practice conveys. [REVIEW]Jenny Saville Portraits - 2009 - In Laurie J. Shrage (ed.), You've Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity. Oup Usa.
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A Kantian Theory of Art Criticism.Emine Hande Tuna - 2016 - Dissertation, University of Alberta

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References found in this work

The expression of the emotions in man and animal.Charles Darwin - 1898 - Mineola, New York: Dover Publications.
Essays Critical and Clinical.Gilles Deleuze - 1997 - Univ of Minnesota Press.
Ce sexe qui n'en est pas un.Luce Irigaray - 1977 - Les Editions de Minuit.

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