Ly Lestberg
The Altar
| Artist: | Ly Lestberg (1965 - ) |
| Title: | The Altar |
| Date: | 1997 |
| Technique: Material: |
photo, digital print photopapre mounted on PVC-plate |
| Height (cm): | 140.0 |
| Width (cm): | 100.0 |
| Description: | The Altar that consists of three photographs is essentially a part of Ly Lestberg's larger series Pietà (1997). Nude photographs of an old woman and a young man are based on the motif of pieta* from Christian iconography, but this timeless representation is in intense dialogue with the present, breaking current taboos and also offering plenty of material for feminist interpretation. While the image of a young naked woman is no longer shocking in either art or the media, the attitude towards a male nude is a little more suspect and the public nudity of an old woman remains a taboo. On one hand Lestberg deals in her photographs purely with aesthetic categories and the concept of “beauty", on the other she adds a certain social therapeutic dimension** through depiction of old age in a youth-oriented society. The image of the Virgin Mary - a pure and saintly mother - has been replaced by a face older, more experienced, wiser woman, a sorceress: the more mystical and scary side of womanhood. Therefore it also presents a multifaceted study of the co-existence and conflict between the opposite sexes.*** In addition - in its presentation of a young man and an old woman - one cannot ignore a reference to the modern “religion", psychoanalysis, and to the Oedipus complex. Anu Allas * Pietà (Italian for piety, patience, compassion, devotion) - a representation of the Virgin Mary mourning over the dead body of Jesus. ** Heie Treier, On Ly Lestberg's Exhibition Pietà. - Vikerkaar, 1997, 12, p. 41. *** Katrin Kivimaa, Forbidden Bodies: Abjection And the Feminine in Art.- Vikerkaar, 2000, 5-6, p. 88. |
| Related categories: | Contemporary Art |
| Copyright notice: | Art Museum of Estonia |
| AME collection: | Contemporary Art Collection |
| Collection number: | FV 107 - 109 |
| Accretion number: | EKM j 47954 - 47956 |
| Muis reference | http://muis.ee/museaalView/1287606 |
| File info: |
Source type: digital photography File type: TIF File size: 80.26MB Resolution: 7075*3964px @ 300dpi |
