Twisted Bodies

Noel W. Anderson, Karel Appel, Fernando Botero, George Condo, Jean Dubuffet, Jazz Grant, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Deborah Roberts, Niki de Saint Phalle, Antonio Saura, Manolo Valdés

Opera Gallery is pleased to present Twisted Bodies, a group exhibition examining the artist’s exploration of figuration and subjectivity in relation to the human body. Framing the artist’s use of body as both a subject and a tool, Twisted Bodies explores the artist’s depiction of the human form in a diverse range of mediums and styles.

Featuring works by Noel W. Anderson, Karel Appel, Fernando Botero, George Condo, Jean Dubuffet, Jazz Grant, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Deborah Roberts, Niki de Saint Phalle, Antonio Saura, and Manolo Valdés, Twisted Bodies represents a diverse presentation of the contrasting yet intertwined formal concerns of embodiment and perception.

Fernando Botero’s signature “Boterismo” portraits feature exaggerated, rounded, and voluminous figures evoke an exaggerated fullness, making his subjects appear soft, smooth, and inflated. George Condo’s striking, distorted portraits blend traditional, modern, and surreal elements with contorted expressions and disjointed features, creating a sense of both familiarity and unease.

Antonio Saura’s depictions of the human form are marked by stark, expressionistic sensibilities approach that elicit emotional intensity and psychological depth, conveying a sense of existential angst. In contrast, Niki de Saint Phalle’s iconic “Nana” sculptures embody a sense of joy and celebration of the human form through their playful poses, bright colors and decorative patterns.

Noel W. Anderson’s jacquard woven tapestries frequently explore the human body through the channels of blackness and masculinity, and their subsequent depictions in mainstream media. Karel Appel’s portraits stray from anatomical accuracy to capture a raw, emotional essence of the human form, while Jean Dubuffet’s sculptural depiction of the body are aesthetically rooted in the Art Brut movement, distinctive in their visceral quality that deliberately eschews traditional notions of idealization and refinement. Jazz Grant’s figurative works are constructed through collage to explore themes of identity, personal history, and the construction of memories.

In the exhibition’s catalog essay, writer Cody C. Delistraty posits, “[beauty is] rarity. The way we understand beauty over time reflects our values. The way we conceive of it for the future reflects our ambitions. And the way we remember, discover, and complicate it is through our art... Twisted Bodies interrogates the meaning of beauty’s rarity, its underlying values, and the ways in which the body might be newly considered.

Twisted Bodies is a multigenerational presentation of the artist’s relationship to– and depictions of–body autonomy, wide ranging culturally defined standards of beauty, and the body as a vessel for emotion, experience and identity.