AIBU to think woman's spread legs on gates in Festival Park Glasgow is disturbing?

[FindTheTruth]

AIBU to think that installing a woman's spread legs on gates in Festival Park Glasgow is disturbing? "the gate of Assumption"

Presumably approved by Glasgow City Council. Someone on twitter says they've done a Freedom of Information request
twitter.com/lorcaat/status/1426981748894797831

Ltd Ink Corporations ‘Gateway to Govan-The Safari of Sorts, Is a series of £100 micro commissions, focused on site specific contemporary artworks. Extending beyond the parameters of our Govan headquarters, this interactive art-safari begins on the facade of our warehouse and extends to the revitalised Clyde waterfront. The walk features works by a collection of artists
ltdinkcorporation.com/Gateway-to-Govan-The-Safari-of-Sorts

Gross 🤢

YANBU. I dislike it for all the reasons already given. I like street art although I think this is shite, but this has no place there, and would be better suited in a skip in a brothel.

2014: The original art is from 2014 rakelmcmahon.info/Red-Direction

2021: People decided to install the spread legs on gates.

No way that’s grim! What were they thinking?

Casual misogyny indeed.

@Henrysmycat

When white men take decisions for all of us, we end up with garbage like this. I bet you, there was no woman involved in the decision making of this excremental abomination. Wtaf!

How do you know what colour the decision maker was?? And are white people not allowed to take decisions any more or is it only black men that can do it? (Would they have done a better job?) Or black women?

Lazy comment. Not thought through.

I hate the "art" - not beautiful or properly "shocking" or beautiful or inspiring just.... - unpleasant and I think degrading to women.

red light district club doors in Hamburg have spread legs too.

I’m not too far away from it and the gates fit in with the feeling of the park - they may well have been intended as a positive comment on the sex workers in the park.

I’m not usually judgy and pearl-clutching about art. But I’m not sure celebrating a public space as a place women sell their bodies is in any way positive.

Art that’s disturbing in a positive way is usually unique, cutting-edge, ahead of its time, challenging to the status quo. This, to me , is the opposite. Even if there are two “gateways” and the other one has a man’s bare legs and uncomfortable shoes, similarly spread, the image of a woman’s open legs vs a man’s does have a different set of cultural baggage in our society. (There’s no reason why it should, let alone MUST - but currently it does.)

Yesterday I noticed a larger-than-life (about 7’ high) poster ad in my city of a woman in a bikini standing with her legs spread, pelvis thrust forward, hands on hips. This is annoying enough, because 98% of the time it’s only images of women you see widely sexualised like this all over the place. But additionally, some witty character had spray painted a target on the woman’s, er, groin.

I’m so used to this shite I usually just tune it out, but it all adds up over time and it’s just exhausting and depressing. I can’t help thinking it’s really grim for girls and young women, seeing this shite all over the place and increasingly normalised.

That's not inspiring artwork, that's naff and mildly depressing.

About the artist:
Rakel McMahon
(Degree in Fine Arts and Diploma in Gender Studies…..)

Rakel McMahon (b.1983) lives and works between Athens and Reykjavík. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2008; she also holds a diploma in Gender Studies from the University of Iceland and a M.Art.Ed. from the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited at various places both in Iceland and internationally.

McMahon also participates in two active collaborative projects; It´s the Media Not You, which was founded in 2014 with artists Eva Ísleifs and Katrín Inga Jóns-Hjördísardóttir and performance duo Wunderkind Collective, which was founded in 2011 in partnership with author Bergþóra Snæbjörnsdóttir.

In addition McMahon has also seen to organizing exhibitions, artist-run spaces and other cultural events such as the artistic board of Sequences - real time art festival and is a former member of the board of The Living Art Museum (2013-2015).

McMahon is interested in approaching and presenting her subject matter through re-interpretation, the use of metaphor and a reevaluation of what is deemed serious, humorous and normal. The subject and issues she works with relate to gender, sexuality, stereotypes and normality.

The above information about the artist is from her website:

rakelmcmahon.info/About

Surely that will be altered in some way before the end of the day !

It's awful.

There must be a petition to get this removed.

All that education for what?
She is hardly challenging gender norms or being cutting edge is she. As a pp said the same image can be seen in any red light area

Normality. Normally women are presented as sexual objects in advertising and media. Now it's the park gates that have been made into sexual objects, by sticking legs in heels on them so that opening the gates is opening the legs. Of course we think of the legs in heels as women's legs. Are we meant to think 'oh it could be men's legs, they're just heels'? Are we meant to ponder what it means when inanimate objects have sexualised images put on them?

Tbh I have the same reaction as most - irritation, disgust, disappointment with a process that has placed this in a public space where there's no choice how to interact with it. No sense of mind expansion or pleasure.

I’m so used to this shite I usually just tune it out, but it all adds up over time and it’s just exhausting and depressing. I can’t help thinking it’s really grim for girls and young women, seeing this shite all over the place and increasingly normalised.

This.

So fed up with intellectual wankery being used to justify what is just naff and in really poor taste.

I’m not too far away from it and the gates fit in with the feeling of the park - they may well have been intended as a positive comment on the sex workers in the park.
Because reducing a sex worker to a pair of legs and a hole in between Isa really positive statement

the gates fit in with the feeling of the park - they may well have been intended as a positive comment on the sex workers in the park.
Really?

Cross post. Exactly. Just horrible and offensive on all levels.

These legs are from a load of artwork she did from flight safety instructions. I understand the concept behind the collection she did but why on Earth they’ve gone onto the gates like this is beyond me. Someone’s asked her the same on Instagram too - but I don’t really understand the answer (I think it was a ‘place first, consider the ‘why’ later). I’m not normally much of a Pearl clutcher, especially not when it comes to art, but I really don’t like this installation.

I think it's awful and now i know the name of the piece of 'art' I still think it's awful but it does make you think.

[quote Tisha0]The above information about the artist is from her website:

rakelmcmahon.info/About[/quote]
The OP has already linked to the artist’s website. The piece in context with the other works in her project has a very different feel and impact.

In this context it feels like a tired old “joke” that just perpetuates the same old shit. It would be interesting to hear what the decision-making process behind the placement was

It's not disturbing in the sense of holding a mirror up to society though is it?

I mean the gate of assumption? Seriously? It may be that they are making a protest but this is going to be lost on most people.

It would be interesting to hear what the decision-making process behind the placement was

yes it would. it wasn't the artists decision but the decision of Ltd Ink Corporation who asked her if they could use the legs. I don't have a problem with the original art from 2014 . I do have a problem with the decision to put spread legs on park gates

In context (displayed with other work from the series, with background explanation) this is art. I really like Red Direction Series of drawings exhibited in 2014 at Týs Gallerí, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Removed from context it's just random legs. Placed where it has been, on the gate the legs are just bizarre, and offensive. A big waste of money.