This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
Plaster and resin casts by artist Larry Kirkwood will be displayed for “The Body Image Project: Beauty as a Relative Concept” Sept. 10-13 in the lobby of the Williams Center for the Arts.
The Body Image Project has been widely covered in newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio stations, including National Public Radio.
Kirkwood will give related talks in Williams Center room 108 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, and noon Friday, Sept. 12. Free and open to the public, the installation and talks are cosponsored by Lafayette’s Counseling Center, which will provide information about eating disorders and how to develop healthy attitudes and behaviors concerning one’s body image. They are presented in conjunction with Headlong Dance Theater’s performances of its new Britney’s Inferno production at the Williams Center Sept. 12-13.
Since 1993, Kirkwood has made more than 450 plaster and resin body casts. Exhibited around the country, they invariably and deliberately provoke discussions about societal standards, self-image, and the truth of beauty. The impressions are taken directly from the bodies of ordinary people – not professional models. According to Kirkwood, this form of art is unique because anyone can be a work of art.
Kirkwood will be in residence at the Williams Center to create a limited number of body casts. Those interested in being “cast” should contact the Williams Center Gallery at 610-330-5361
“The point of these exhibits is to show what we actually physically look like as opposed to the images we are bombarded with by the beauty and fashion industries through the media,” says Kirkwood. “The end goal is to change the way we look and think about ourselves and others. The concept of beauty (which for many means ‘self-worth’) can be seen to apply to all shapes and sizes, all ages and all ethnic backgrounds.”
“Another aspect addressed is the overuse of our sexuality to sell products,” he adds. “The end result is that people are defining themselves and judging others by their sexual aspects alone. If we take only one aspect of who we are to define people, it ignores all the other things that we have worked so hard to be. It’s simple logic that ‘we do no define the whole by one of its parts.’ We need to be able to see the human body for its unique and beautiful form without other attachments.”
Complementing the exhibit is a series of fashion design drawings by Terese Brown ’07 (Bronx, N.Y.) in the lobby display cases, sponsored by Lafayette Arts Society.
Williams Center gallery hours are noon-5 p.m. Monday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday; and 2-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and before public performances in the Williams Center, which is located at the intersection of Hamilton and High Streets on Lafayette’s main campus. For more information, call the gallery at 610-330-5361 or email artgallery@lafayette.edu.
The Williams Center gallery is funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.