THE NUDE NOW: THREE PAINTINGS AT THE KILGOUR PRIZE

In 2019, it’s tempting to think that we’ve passed beyond the boundaries of genre. We live in an arguably postmodern period defined by Craig Owens, for instance, as ‘a crisis of cultural authority’. However, this year’s Kilgour Prize at Newcastle Art Gallery was an exposition of the ways in which figurative painting still grapples with the generic protocols of the nude.

We’ve long known that ‘naked’ simply describes a body unclothed, while the nude takes nakedness and filters it remains some of the most compelling historical analysis of the nude. To Berger, the nude instantiates a concept of ‘woman’ as an object of observation, a spectacle knowingly seen by both painter and audience. Enter the notion of femininity as display, diametrically opposed to the action of masculinity: ‘men act and women appear’. Here, to be a woman is to have one’s body placed (one’s hips tilted, one’s hair swept back) under the proprietorial gaze of masculine authority.