In The Faith of Beauty

By Mary Gilkerson

Three related series of images by Columbia native Martin Cooper - "Botanicals,” “the Altis,” and “the Almagest” - are displayed in the Columbia Museum’s intimate Focus Galleries. These small spaces are the perfect setting for viewing smaller works such as photographs and prints.

Cooper’s photographs are undeniably beautiful. The question that comes to mind though is whether these photographs are more than simply seductively beautiful images within two traditional genres, female nudes and botanicals.

It would not arise at all except for the texts accompanying the exhibit. In these Cooper takes an anti-Modernist stance as Beauty’s champion and what sounds on paper like a feminist/revisionist stance on the use of the female nude. He describes his work as an attempt to use beauty to re-examine these genres.

What ends up happening in the photographs themselves is that his anti-Modernist pursuit of Beauty comes across very clearly and fairly successfully. But his use of the female nude, despite his intentions, functions within the genre in a very traditional way. The female form is just as objectified as in Edward Weston’s famous nudes.

In general the photographs are images of single figures or flowers, slightly blurred with an impenetrable solid dark background. The full negative is used with the edge visible, an acknowledgement that these are constructed realities instead of a “slice-of-life.” There is a very satisfying simplicity to the spare compositions.

The process and craft of photography is important to Cooper. He makes carefully toned gelatin silver prints using Polaroid negatives in small print editions. All are toned a deep brown sepia or cool blue gray using special recipes made from scratch.

The choice of warm or cool tone is apparently aesthetic rather than conceptual. For example, “Aquarius” from the “Almagest” series, the Water Bearer, is warm sepia while “Leo” is cool selenium blue. Although these choices do not hurt the images visually, it does make the color fight with the subject rather than reinforce it.

Single blooms, centrally placed and highly focused on the bloom, dominate the images in “the Botanicals” series. The high contrast in value, the surface quality of the petals and sensuality of the subjects make these very dramatic works.

One of the most beautiful is “Orchis” from 1995. A rich range of values and surfaces focus your eye on the sensual pistols of the flower.

“The Almagest “ is a series of twelve images inspired by Ptolemy’s 2nd century book of the same name. Each photograph focuses on one of the signs of the zodiac using a female nude as the literal “carrier” for the symbols of the constellations - a ram’s skull for Aries, a bull’s head for Taurus, a crab for Cancer.

The most interesting of the Almagest images is “Scorpius,” a composition in cool blue tone showing just the feet of the model filling the horizontal picture plane. The pincers of the scorpion graze the bottom of the foot. The heel of the foot carefully holds the tail. The juxtaposition of danger and vulnerability creates a wonderful tension.

“The Altis: Portraits of the Immortals” is a series of images intended to give women something they have been denied by culture, to elevate and praise their athleticism in a way that was not allowed in the ancient Olympic games. Women were forbidden to either participate or view the games on pain of death.

Each image captures a single nude female form engaged in various classical athletic pursuits. The staged fantasy-like quality of the images and the poses of the models contradict the artist’s intentions.

Only two of them, “Events: Through the Eye of an Archer” and “Events: Rhythmic Gymnastics: Arch,” have the women actually doing anything. In “Events: Through the Eye of an Archer” the nude figure is poised in the act of pulling back a bowstring, about to loose the arrow. The figure is arched in dance with a hoop in “Events: Rhythmic Gymnastics: Arch”.

The strong erotic element in most of the series also makes them look more like centerfolds than celebrations of women’s athletic power. In “Events: Boxer Profile” the figure’s oiled body glistens as her body tenses. This along with the wrapping of her head and hands with a thin satin ribbon makes her look like a male fantasy object.

These photographs are beautiful carefully crafted works that for the most part stand well on there own. But sometimes artists would be better off without making artist’s statements. The female figure cannot be both a beautiful object, a “veneer” and a celebration of individual achievement.

Mary Bentz Gilkerson is an artist and writer living in Columbia, SC. She is a member of the faculty in the Art Department at Columbia College.

In the Faith of Beauty: Photographs by Martin Cooper

Through Nov.19 at Columbia Museum of Art, Corner of Main at Hampton. www.columbiamuseum.org.
803-799-2810. Hours: Tue­Sat 10­5, Wed­until 9, Sun 1­5, closed Mon. Admission: Free to member and children 5 and under, free the first Saturday of every month, seniors and students­$2, adults­$4.