One Minute Sculpture. Oranges 2017

Curator: Here we have Elina Brotherus's photograph, "One Minute Sculpture. Oranges," from 2017. Part of her exploration of performative photography, directly engaging with the body. Editor: It’s stark. I’m immediately struck by the muted palette and the figure’s direct gaze. The unusual bulges where you might expect curves feel like a deliberate disruption of conventional form. Curator: Absolutely, the disruption is key. The series this image belongs to nods to Erwin Wurm’s "One Minute Sculptures", works born from absurdist instructions to find sculpture in everyday activity. Brotherus pushes the viewer to question conventional representations of the body within a history dominated by male perspectives. Editor: It’s that interplay between flatness and volume that fascinates me. The creamy beige of the top and dress—almost skin-like—contrasts so strikingly with what seems to be two rather…ripe oranges pressing against her torso. There’s a tension created by these disparate shapes. Curator: And that tension serves to underline Brotherus’ broader engagement with female artists before her; exploring the role of women in art both as subjects, but more significantly as active creators, shaping and questioning traditional conventions of nudity. The artist is literally shaping her body in ways contrary to conventional notions. Editor: I find her posture almost confrontational. The geometry of the background emphasizes her stillness. Even the grid of the tiles grounds her in this very austere, yet intentional composition. It avoids any softness and subverts the very common and very different male-gaze art historical trope of reclining nude subjects, which are ubiquitous within Western painting, of course. Curator: Yes, the work speaks to that canon, directly intervening through a postmodernist sensibility which welcomes parody and theatricality, disrupting normative viewpoints, challenging societal structures of power. This allows us to consider her work as a kind of modern-day activist aesthetic. Editor: Considering it all now, I see that beyond this work’s inherent formalism, its surface design and color structure, it offers up social criticism, creating awareness for contemporary artistic conventions, especially where the female nude is concerned. Thank you for adding some meaningful insight! Curator: A rewarding exploration, bringing focus to this subtle though very powerful, contemporary intervention. Thank you for the interesting dialogue.