The Human Body: Isis Rodriguez and Laura Aguilar

Instead of speaking of only one artist presentation, I wish to focus on Laura Aguilar and Isis Rodriguez and there usage of the human body, more importantly the female body, as having a crucial rule in the art work shown. 

Nude figures are still frowned upon our society. Walking into a restaurant you will likely find signs that read “No Shirt No service”. Yet it is socially acceptable for a man to talk around half nude but f a females wears a sports bra or a bikini top she is labeled as promiscuous, sluty and easy. Within Isis collection My Life as a Comic Stripper, she explores the realm of gender inequality and the misconstrued assumptions that are made about female strippers. After the brief presentation Renee Castagna did, I was intrigued and I decided to Google Isis Rodriguez,. Images such as “He Said I Could” and “Peepshow Gone Creepshow” allude to the dynamic between the Patrons, Club Owners and the Erotic Dancers. “He said I could” focus on the idea of who is being exploited whether it is the dancer or the patron and in this piece Isis demonstrates how the patrons are the ones who run the show, because the customer is always right and he has complete control over his money therefore he can choose when to walk away. Thus the one in power is typically a man while the victim is a female illustrating the inequality amongst gender. Meanwhile “Peepshow Gone Creepshow” brings attention to the greed of strip club owners and how they exploit strippers by basically forcing them to pay an advertisement fee that is so high, that the only way to pay the fee and make a profit is to do private shows for the clients. Isis’ cartoons are meant to empower females and warn them against this profession of females in this work force by bringing forth the problems people are oblivious to. By using nudity and sensuality, as her them she is able to highlight the stereotypes attributed to strippers but once the audience begin to connect the title with the image and the inspiration the truth is finally revealed. The best example of Isis using her art to sway people against the stripping industry would be “Pimp Lobby Propaganda”

 Laura Aguilar discovered the beauty is subjective and depends on the eye of the beholder. By placing herself in natural settings Aguilar is alluding the natural beauty of a human being. She does not use her body to advocate sexuality but the sensuality of oneself, and because she s not your typical size two model she helps serve as an inspiration to all women out there. She advocates for people to be comfortable with themselves and within their own settings. By stripping her body of clothes she illustrate freedom. Freedom from all those categorizations that lead to discrimination, whether it be from gender, race, sexuality, or body size.

 It might be that I read too much into these artists’s art, but in the end I argue that both of these artists use the human body to empower people and not degrade them.