Post-Art Clarity

Is 'sexy' a state of mind or body? The act of being seen is a deeply performative one, whether or not we sense it consciously. For instance, how many people with a regular and high following on social media are continuously their authentic selves? Is such a practice even possible? Being oneself is now a career option, in theory, in the case of influencers, but how do we know when we have lost control of our authenticity and our autonomy? There are clear and violent cases of these losses, flowing through the social, cultural, political and criminal, but the more insidious ways in which autonomy ebbs away is of interest. The depiction of women's bodies in contemporary art is becoming increasingly anonymised, I have observed. With avatars, emojis and AI playing such a huge role in our online lives, it is interesting when bodies are either obscured to the point of abstraction, or, as is the case with Swedish artist Anna Uddenberg, faceless. While Uddenberg's work is not dir