The ageing female body and the cult of youth: Joan Semmel in Belgium

For American artist Joan Semmel, the body is a lens through which to dissect the cult of youth. Using her own body as a reference – although these works aren’t self-portraits – Semmel considers the representation of women through an unflinching examination of the natural ageing process. 

Joan Semmel, ‘An Other View’ at Xavier Hufkens

At her first exhibition with Xavier Hufkens in Belgium, Semmel juxtaposes the tracing of this passage of time with an exploration of political feminist issues. In eight oil paintings and two works on paper, created between 1971 and 2018, Semmel questions the accepted nuances of female beauty, beginning with her early works that sought to dismiss sexual repression for women by depicting intimacy from and for a woman’s gaze.

Through a muted colour palette and with a nod to her abstract expressionist roots, Semmel considers the body as she sees it, eschewing the male gaze altogether. In Weathered (2018), which shows the female body from the viewpoint of the female, the eyes on the body are the artist’s alone. 

Elsewhere, it is props that distort the male gaze. In Disappearing (2006), we are already removed from the body, represented only through a photograph, its opaqueness carefully replicated. The mirrors and cameras of Baroque (2002) force the viewer into the frame, questioning their own motives in the reflection. 

‘Reimagining the nude without objectifying the person, using my own body, made it clear that the artist was female and undercut the stereotypes of the male artist and the female muse,’ says Semmel. ‘I wanted to subvert that tradition from within.’

Joan Semmel, ‘An Other View’, is on until 15 June 2024 at Xavier Hufkens, Van Eyck, Brussels, Belgium

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