Zeitgeist: life drawing in bars
June 9th, 2009 by News
Nude life drawing, by some strange quirk of the zeitgeist, has become a positive phenomenon. The Artangel collective is shortly to undertake a national project that will culminate in Channel 4 broadcasting naked models in primetime.
The Secret Garden Party festival next month will devote a whole arena to life-drawing, while tonight the Paradise Bar in Kilburn will host “Dr Sketchy’s Burlesque Life-Drawing” night — yes, life drawing and burlesque together, how 2009 is that?
Beach Blanket Babylon’s Tuesday sessions were the idea of Phillip Bodenham, who studied fine art before beginning a career in fashion, and was inspired by a similar class he attended in Sydney, which attracted 40-50 people a week.
“It was a wonderful thing to do — share a bottle of wine with friends, and sketch.” His interest is purely artistic, he maintains, but the frisson of eroticism is undeniable. Perhaps, given the controversy surrounding burlesque performance, this is the respectable way to enjoy breasts in public?
In fact, once the surprise of public nakedness subsides, as it were, the artistic part proves immensely absorbing.
How’s that for changing patterns of cultural consumption? Read the full article here.
