The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - SA The (un)fashion of contrapposto gg-hating isn't reserved for ergonomics-purists. Sure, the boots betray :ommon sense and physical health >n several counts, but that's hardly unique as footwear goes. They're also one of the most visible players in a bizarre modern trend that's a is possible only by digital manipu- lation, it stays safely ridiculous. But if disabling postures are obviously satirical in shoe ads, what do we call them when real women fall back on this stance, or when they wear shoes that force them to shuffle and drag their feet Michael Kenna's powerful study of Ford's Rouge plant in Dearborn, now at UMMA's Off-Site Gallery. Built subtle KENNA APPROACHES ICONIC FORD PLANT WITH DUE PATIENCE By ANDREW SARGUS KLEIN ManagingArts Editor In the exhibit "The Rouge: Photographs by MichaelKenna,"the overridingthemeis patience. Running through Jan. 14 at the University's off-site The Rouge: gallery, the exhibit is com- Photographs prised of approximately 40 by Michael photographs taken at Ford's Kenna massive automotive plant in Dearborn. The plant, Through designed by Albert Kahn, At UMMA's stretches for 93 miles and Off-Site Gal ery at one pointboasted a work- force nearly the size of Ann Arbor. It's an artist's delight: massive smokestacks, ominous cloud- banks of smog, dramatic angles - the works. But it's difficult not to recall Michigan's eco- nomic woes and how they're tied to the twilight of the American auto industry. When the subject of a photographic study is the Rouge plant, the question of representing the immediate humani- ty of the situation (the countless lives and futures upended by the recession) both constrains and contextualizes - and Kenna's images eventu- ally triumph through their dedicated pacing and unadulterated reverence to the subject. The lush black-and-white photographs are executed in medium format with long exposure times. Every detail is coerced into focus and, since there is little action, each image carries a sense of foreboding, of absolute stillness. Immediately noticeable is the total lack of organic lifeforms - the only exceptions being a single bird and a bare tree. None of Kenna's imag- es have titles, only differentiated by their series number. The photos are universally medium- sized squares, but with so much attention paid to detail and composition, each image appears remote. It's a completely unromantic aesthetic. Kenna is keenly aware of how the eye of the photographer can compromise the integrity of the subject, and while his distanced approach is almost surgical at times, it pays off for the series as a whole. Kenna doesn't spotlight political or social issues (at least not overtly), and his compositional choices reflect a modernist approach to photog- raphy: uncovering the repetition and transfor- mation of forms, grids, etc. found in manmade, "non-artistic" structures. Rather than washing out the subject with theory, though, Kenna's aca- demic style plays perfectly into the images. "The Rouge Study #87" is an almost fantastical image. The artist is perched atop a monumental assembly of steel girders, looking down toward the industrial skyline. It's clear that Kenna is per- haps hundreds of feet offthe ground, but the final image is not one of wide-open astonishment. The view is closely cropped, eliminating the sense of the peripheral as well as the presence of the pho- tographer. Kenna himself is from the Midwest, and so the vocabulary of industry is far from foreign to him. But instead of idealizing easily recogniz- able objects and scenes, Kenna looks to nameless, sometimes abandoned bits of machinery and presents them as part of a seemingly alien world - namely in images #27, #66 and #72. The sense of distance is heightened; the viewer cannot label the photographed objects. The images are not grouped chronologically (far from it), and instead appear in clusters of related compositions - such as the stunning night shots of silo-like structures from the ground, the stars appearing as concentric arcs emanating from an unknown center. This can be disconcerting for the meandering viewer, but a little patience goes a long way with this exhibit. Kenna avoids numerous pitfalls, such as over sentimentalizing the Michigan economy and diluting the subject with academic compositions. Diego Rivera visited the Rouge plant during its mid-20th century heyday, and his studies influ- enced his iconic mural series at the Detroit Insti- tute of Art. Kenna could not have approached the subject more differently, but in the end, his pared-down images carry their own weight - along with the history behind them. direct challenge to clas- - which, in the ads, were sical aesthetics. as deliberate aesthetic Let's take that iconic choices as tiny waists and image of romantic wom- glossy hair? anhood: the goddess Not only are they going Venus as she appears nowhere fast, they seem in Botticelli's "The unaware of their ability Birth of Venus." The to adjust themselves. This tall blonde stands on a aesthetic is easy enough seashell on the ocean's ABIGAIL B. to find in American pop- surface, waves pushing COLODNER ular images, and it's all her toward shore. With over the place in their her hands and a lock of hair, she Japanese counterparts. Trends in covers (more or less) select parts of fashion, theoretically a kind of fem- her naked body. Her pose is a prime inine armor, now draw attention to example of contrapposto, where, how handicapped girls allow them- due to the angle of her shoulders selves to be. and hips, she seems to be shifting While the Renaissance Venus her weight. Visually, contrapposto reinforced a beloved aesthetic for gives us the sense that she's about the feminine form, one 19th-cen- to step forward. tury painter's reimaginingof Venus It's her stance that makes this is notorious for the ire it provoked. one of the most recognizable imag- Edouard Manet's "Olympia" shows es in art - you could dress as Venus a prostitute reclining on an unmade in a hazmat suit and still the refer- ence would be recognizable. If this Venus embodies, as the The Italian test of time would suggest, some- thing essentially appealing and Renaissance and perhaps even essentially feminine, what are we to think when other women's posture. icons take this position and direct- ly invert it? Scarlett Johansson at an awards bed. Like Botticelli's. Venus, she show, Harajuku girls trailing Gwen comes off as self-possessed and in Stefani, fashion spreads in Van- charge of her presentation - which ity Fair - women stand with their is of the greatest importance. Writ- weight thrown into one hip, their ings from the time show that this knees angled in and down and their self-possession was both apparent toes pointing at each other. They and objectionable to his contempo- stand pigeon-toed and off-balance, raries. They describe the image as baffled by their own bodies. "cynical," and say that the woman's Botticelli's Venus welcomes our straightforward, unwavering gaze gaze, gesturing modestly while is "provoking the public." Unlike allowing us to see the good stuff. her visual predecessors, includ- That in itself is not terribly progres- ing various Venuses, she's neither sive, but look how momentary this come-hither nor clueless. indulgence is - she's about to step Both the Venus and this prosti- onto shore, where a maiden waits tute hold the cards - Venus whets to sheathe her in cloth. Her tender your appetite before stepping look is a small liberty she allows us. away, and Manet's figure holds her We are a privileged and barely wor- ground. She's not going anywhere thy audience for her nudity - and until she decides to. We see that she's about to take it away. in the steady look that made her Far from stepping lightly onto viewers so disgruntled and in how fragrant shores, the best that some she positions herself not without of today's women could hope for feminine appeal - crossed legs and is to recover quickly after tripping nudity being generally appealing over their own torqued feet. - but with a heavy dose of deci- The most grotesque perpetra- siveness. Ankles crossed, knees cor in the media of this cartoonish together, and that's what she has pose is the Steve Madden company, chosen to do. As opposed to leav- whose ad campaign showed its ing the decision of what happens to models as imps with proportions her physical person - whether she adjusted according to marketabil- will walk or be tipped over - up to ity. So the company lampooned someone else. advertising while banking onthe same methods it ridiculed to be - Colodner's feet are effective advertising. Fine and priceless. Ask her about them savvy: when an aesthetic that alien at abigabor@umich.edu. Students compete for public recital spots In Chinese village, the slow triumph of love By KAI QIN Daily Arts Writer One of the obvious challenges a filmmaker faces when adapting a complex book is how to man- age the book's The Painted many tropes eil in a two-hour window. At the In the case Michigan Theater of "The Paint- Warner ed Veil," this Independent difficulty is further amplified by the generational gap between the original noveland themodern audi- ence. Written in 1925 by Somerset Maugham, the book is grounded in the cultural motifs of its day. From the social politicking of its urbane characters to the revolutionary transformation in China, the novel has simply too many promising and topical themes for one film to explore effectively. Director John Curran's ("We Don't Live Here Anymore") solution to this dilem- ma is to cover all its bases - but dwell on only one. The film opens with the intro- duction of English socialite Kitty (Naomi Watts, "King Kong") who, like any typical upper-class Victo- rian young woman, flocks to night- ly dinner parties while flashing vacant smiles. When Walter Fane (Edward Norton, "The Illusion- ist"), a young bacteriologist whome she barely knows, proposes to her, she accepts and takes the opportu- nity to escape her mother's critical eye. However, marriage isn't what she imagined and she soon realizes she doesn't love her workaholic husband. When she meets debonair Edward Norton and Naomi Watts aren't the perfect couple - but a few months in a cholera hotspot should do the trick. Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber, Watts gives arguably her best "The Manchurian Candidate"), performance as the spiritually Kitty is immediately smitten and reborn Kitty. Even as a spoiled the two throw themselves into an and selfish party girl, we can't help affair. Inevitably, Walter discovers but find her faults tolerable. When his wife's adultery and forces her to she transforms into a caring and accompany him on an expedition altruistic woman, we rush to for- give her for her past foolishness, convinced the virtues were there Love in the all along. Norton's faux-British accent betrays him, but he excels time of cholera. as the tormented Dr. Fane, whose outward diligence veils an internal Seriously. affliction. But the film itself isn't with- out its flaws. The numerous issues to a small Chinese town where an that Curran ambitiously touches outbreak of cholera has taken place. upon saturate the film and build to It's here, at a remote corner of the little more than haphazard embel- world surrounded by disease and lishments. For instance, the story political perils, where their love builds heavily on a tense atmo- slowly begins to bloom. sphere at a time when Western political pressures on a Chinese nationalist regime provoked deeply anti-foreign sentiments. But noth- ing materializes out of this and the conflict is forgotten as the movie progresses. In the end, the film's central theme, an exploration of a love nurtured by time, is executed exceptionally well. Curran metic- ulously portrays how a callous, often antagonistic relationship can mature into a passionate bond. The story seems to reject the idea of love at first sight by defining it instead as discovering, and eventu- ally embracing others' attributes and shortcomings. As Kitty somberly admits, "We were wrong to look for qualities in each other that weren't there at all." By CATHERINE SMYKA DailyArts Writer HillAuditoriumyesterdaykicked off the first of three free days of outstanding music and passionate musicians. The annual Concerto Competition Finals allow a prime group of Music School performers, both graduates and undergradu- ates, to compete against each other in hopes of landing a coveted seat in public recitals later this winter and spring. Participants perform musical numbers by composers such as Ser- gei Rachmaninoff, Aaron Copland and Peter Tchaikovsky before a panel of 12 to 13 judges. After each audition, the judges decide wheth- er or not they would like to see the participant perform his or her piece for a crowd. Each judge may choose as many or as few perform- ers as he or she decides and votes on who continues on. Audiences don't have a say in who moves forward to the public recitals, but the atten- tiveness of students and family in the crowd and the sheer intensity of the hopeful students makes it a worthwhile event to explore. Performances are free and begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.