Shanghai art gallery says sorry after showing exhibit that ranked looks of 5,000 women, from prettiest to ugliest
- 19 Jun 2021
Gulf Today Report
It’s a constant, never-ending battle many women have to wage, combating the stereotypes portrayed by male chauvinists who treat them as objects of desire rather than appreciate their educational or professional qualities. Sexist, misogynistic statements or attitudes have become the order of the day.
One Bollywood star said sexism exists in politics. She was targeted by a politician who said she was chosen by the party because of her looks.
Recently, public figures from writers to lawmakers launched a campaign to change a leading Italian dictionary’s “sexist” definition of a woman.
Now, a state-backed art gallery in Shanghai has done the unthinkable: promoting an artwork that ranked thousands of real-life women by appearance, from the prettiest to the ugliest.
The exhibit however found itself in the crosshairs of controversy, igniting indignation from social media buffs. They felt the creation, Uglier and Uglier, by male artist Song Ta, showed "disrespect and offence to female friends".
The art gallery later apologised for "trouble, discomfort and injury" caused by the work, which was withdrawn from the exhibition.
The hours-long video featured about 5,000 photos and videos of anonymous women filmed on a university campus, displayed and given numerical ranks based on the artist's judgment of their attractiveness.
The work, which has appeared in multiple shows since 2013, sparked online outrage after OCAT promoted it online earlier this week, with Chinese social media users saying it was misogynistic and an invasion of the women's privacy.
"It's already 2021, how can you still objectify women so boldly, without any shame?" one Weibo user asked in a post, using the hashtag for the artwork's name, which had been viewed 90 million times by Friday evening.
Song told Vice magazine's now-defunct Chinese edition in 2019 that he and his assistants had sorted the images into computer folders with names such as "forgivably ugly" and "unforgivably ugly".
He said in the Vice interview that his assistants had "not exchanged superfluous words and just directly filmed" the women, and that he had sent female assistants to do the filming work as it "wouldn't seem as perverted".
"I think I have the right to tell the truth," he said in the interview, in response to critics.
Beijing Commune, the gallery that represents Song, did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
OCAT, sponsored by the state-owned tourism and real estate conglomerate Overseas Chinese Town Enterprises, said it was temporarily closing the exhibition to remove the work, and would "conduct in-depth reflection".
Song Ta's works, which include tongue-in-cheek drawings and other video art, have been exhibited internationally including at established institutions in Switzerland and the UK.