Kopin Katalin (szerk.): Test objektív. A test reprezentációja a kortárs művészetben - Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, C. sorozat: Katalógusok 5. (Szentendre, 2013)

The photo series entitled Personal by Luca Göbölyös presents anti-beauty ideals. The female figure depicted in classical Venus pose is interpreted as an ideal attracting the attention of men and raising desire. However, this illusion is soon destroyed, as in today’s society, curvaceous and overweight people are ostracised and stigmatised, rather than regarded as the object of desire. The awkward situation, the disharmony between the pose and the figure query the justification of society’s accepted beauty ideal. Can people who are different from the average be considered beautiful? Can a slim female figure radiating vitality and health be replaced by a fat body as a beauty icon? Consumer society is based on piling up of goods, whereas the feminine ideal defined by society focuses on an ascetic body that keeps itself under strict control, and deprives itself of the ambiguous enjoyment of consumption.

Other photos belonging to the series answer the questions raised. The model in the photo entitled Venus I. is undergoing “slimming intervention” in the pictures Fitting l-ll. The artist applies a fictitious corset made of pink ribbon to artificially correct the problematic zones of the female figure. The posture and look of the corrected figure suggest happiness, the position of a person celebrating her triumph over herself.

It is not the first time Luca Göbölyös has contrasted social norms with reality. In her series Untitled created in 2000, she broke with the concept of the idealised female nude, and visualised the passing of time and the changes of human body in her mounted picture series. By projecting a young woman’s figure and an old woman’s body on each other, a special “time torso” was created.