Who's afraid of male nude? About Ora Ruven art workDr. Tal Dekel/art history, Tel Aviv University

(Translation of Hebrew)

In the center of this work of art large paintings of male nude are placed. Near them, digital works presenting similar nudity. These digital works of art display the naked man as a tempting and peeping objective, wrapped in lace, soft bed linen and gold, parts of his body exposed to the observer, but his face remains hidden. This is somehow a pornographic expression, which turns to the partner and shares the watching act softly and kindly creating an atmosphere, an environment of desire in many women’s hearts- lace, gold, candlelight, romance.Masculine pornography is completely different from the pornography exhibited by women. Mainstream pornography if directed mainly at a masculine audience displays the female body usually in maximum close-up, while turning the woman into an object and thus negating her subjectivity. Actually, this is mainly functional pornography.

Man as an objective of temptation is the complete opposite.

In the last decades, many women artists have dealt with cultural and traditional roles in reverse. Some of them introduced themselves as strong characters when facing a weakened man. Often they showed sex as a wicked or threatening. However, in this work the reverse tends to carry a different quality: The man is the objective of the woman’s desire. In other words, instead of treating the brutality in the man-woman relationship, a new agenda, in which the woman treats her objective controlled by her own desire, desire combined with softness, beauty and romance. The artist does not represent a woman trying to replace man’s powerful position by placing herself as a strong figure facing him, but she is a woman expressing her femininity in relation to him.Consequently, one must not overlook the strength of the artist shown when men, who are not professional models, are ready to undress in front of her for painting or for taking pictures..

The paintings, usually average in size and format, are realistic. Adult, authentic men are shown, men distant and different from the muscular handsome common male models. Nudity is direct, sometimes even embarrassing. Most men painted are seated on an armchair in a classic model position or outstretched on a bed staring at the painter / the observer. Another man is caught sleeping naked unaware of the action of painting taking place. In a different painting, a man is standing covering his face while his nakedness is exposed shamefully in full to the observer.

Style is traditional and the scene itself is classic- the model poses naked for the artist. However, the element formed is not traditional or classic at all.

At first glance, it seems that male nudity is conventional and tolerable for the contemporary observer who is accustomed to complete exposure of naked

bodies in the media. Nevertheless, a review of contemporary art will show that male nudity exists in many works of art done by male artists but it is almost non- existent in the works of women artists.

Let us examine the history of the last decades when women were finally permitted to enter the historical canon as artists, to the feminist era which brought with it new winds of equality and sexual freedom. This allowed women artists to express whatever they wished to. Women have almost never used male nudity to proclaim the above mentioned freedom. When they eventually did that protest was the main voice in their works. Many of them painted only distorted, frightening, ridiculous, pathetic or repulsive men. Thus they managed to convey the hardest feelings which have been part of their being throughout patriarchal history, a history which never granted them any space to convey empathy, sensuality, eroticism or love- a woman’s love for a man.

Woman’s sexuality- A black hole- as named by the father of psychology- is treated by the artist in a brave and sincere way.

In time parts of this so called hole has saturated. “The Woman’s Liberation Movement” born in the late sixties’, the outbreak of feminism in the seventies allowed a conscious and extensive discourse on feminine sexuality. These also gave space to women’s love, to masturbation, to the act of love between a man and a woman, but they did not dwell long enough on the theories and art related to those who wished to continue living the relationships with the men in their lives. There were no answers or guidance for “feminist” women who wanted to exist and live with the men in their lives in equality. I t is hard to locate research which examine woman’s sexuality in relation to man and her view of him. Doesn’t a woman have a personal view of man?

This infrequent question is repeatedly asked in Ora Reuven’s art.

And perhaps a different reason prevented women from dealing with male nudity. Perhaps this taboo subject is still so scorched in them that its violation is almost impossible. Maybe when a woman shows any sexual interest in a man she still puts herself at risk of becoming an outcast, she is still fearful of the social finger that might be pointed at her labeling her as immoral or adventurous. Maybe the decent woman of the twenty first century still sees herself as “proper” only when the “classic” man accepts her as proper, modest quite a holy image , mother of his children, an almost sexless creature, and not the easy one who poses as a model completely naked, or alternatively, the one who dares to paint a naked man herself. In other words, the woman has not yet been able to free herself from the perception of her own self as dictated by the male culture.This understanding leads us to John Berger’s article “Ways of Seeing”where he deals with the power of the male’s look being the originator of his position as subjective whereas the woman’s position is the objective. This is a look that forces the woman to adopt the man’s look and see herself in the eyes of the man as an object of his desire.

Ora Reuven seized this look. However, in her painting, where she looks in the man’s eyes and at his nakedness painting them in a straightforward and powerful manner, there is no violence, no patrimony nor objectivism which we are familiar with in the innumerable nude paintings painted throughout the history of art.The look- the central instrument of objectivism in art , is used by the artist when she looks at the male nakedness. Then she achieves a position of strength.The question is whether she managed to turn this position, this strength gained by this look into an instrument of control. In the paintings the man is presented in his full virility displaying full presence in warm colors and in light focus- the paintings respect him.

The proposal is to see in nakedness and sexuality something uncontrollable. This is the essence of the female look which connects between the erotic and the sexual and between warmth and love without control. This is actually how the feminine look differs from the masculine look, which is the expression of desire and possession.

These works represent femininity not manifested by the masculine culture. This is a liberated femininity, which built itself on her own, while leaning on freedom created for her by the first feminist mothers, freedom that is still far from being completely accomplished.