'Colour Me Dead' public lecture at Melbourne Uni

Painting all day long.

In the evening, I went to this lecture by Philip Brophy, coinciding with the exhibition at The Ian Potter Museum of Art.

He traced thousands of artworks to understand how the nude has been depicted and rendered.

This lecture series are based on his forthcoming book.
Unfortunately, I missed the previous two, and this is the last one.

Chapter 5: The Hungry Vagina
How the body threatens, devastates, desiccates, devours.

Chapter 6: The Prostrate Christ
How the body is laid out, kept flat, left lying, made horizontal.

I was intrigued by his suggestion that there's an artistic connection between Gustave Courbet's painting 'The Origin of the World' and 'Fountain' by Marcel Duchamp.

Also fascinating is, art historians have recently found Courbet's masterpiece originally had an entire body including model's face. In order to avoid causing a trouble to her, he cropped the painting.

And, they discovered the cropped painting. We might be able to see the original painting as a whole. That's very exciting. 

In the gallery, there's a beautiful silent video work by Philip, titled 'The Prostrate Christ'.
Two nude models are recreating scenes of well known paintings.
I acknowledge one of them. I often draw her at a life drawing class.
Lauren is one of the best models, and she is fantastic in the video. A very talented girl indeed.

"The work acknowledges how the nude brimming with life and composure would eventually become a vessel of necrotic decomposition."