Eccentric Bodies, a group exhibition that explores new visions of the female nude, opens at the Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries on June 14, 2007. The show will remain on view through August 3, 2007. Also on view through August 3 is the companion show, Brenda Goodman: Self Portraits 2003 - 2007, at the Douglass Library Galleries in Mabel Smith Douglass Library.

Exhibition hours for "Eccentric Bodies" at Mason Gross Galleries are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, and 2 to 5 p.m. on weekends. The Mason Gross Galleries are located in Rutgers' Civic Square Building.

Exhibition hours for "Brenda Goodman: Self Portraits 2003 - 2007" at Douglass Library Galleries. Exhibition hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays only. Weekend visits are by appointment only; call 732/932-9407 x27. Douglass Library is located on the Douglass Campus.

Eccentric Bodies includes the work of seven women artists who are creating a new "gaze" directed towards the female nude. These artists explore the intersection of life's imprint on the site of women's bodies. Their work contradicts the conventional "male gaze" of Western art since the Renaissance in which the nude is represented as sexually passive and available; the contemporary gaze of artists like John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage, who subvert this traditional "male gaze" through exaggeration and distortion; and the gaze of the feminist artists of the 1970s who were concerned primarily with gender. The Eccentric Bodies artists are concerned with such issues as the aging body and the body as the bearer of cultural and ethnic identity. A distinguishing characteristic of the group show is that all works are on a heroic scale.

The show's seven featured artists themselves represent a range of geography, age, and medium. They are Harriet Casdin-Silver, photographer, Boston, Massachusetts; Bailey Doogan, painter, Tucson, Arizona; Brenda Goodman, painter, New York; Orlan, performance and video artist, Paris, France; Ernestine Ruben, photographer, Princeton, New Jersey; Berni Searle, performance and video artist, Johannesburg, South Africa; and Linda Stein, sculptor, New York.

The Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries are located at 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The exhibition is curated by Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin, and sponsored by the Institute for Women and Art, the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, and the Brodsky Center, all at Rutgers University.

For more information on the featured artists, please see:
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/exhibits/dana_womens.shtml