Skin Dips, an exhibition of photographs and sculptures by two New York-based artists, Dalia Amara and Florencia Escuerdo (until 12 November), uses anthropomorphism to examine how the female body is represented, scrutinised and objectified. Amara’s photographs include a series taken after her wedding last year, which she says show “the amplified pressures of how women should look at their wedding and the sacrifices that are made to achieve that—from my time, energy, job and art—and the unrealistic pressures of the domestic space”. Escudero’s work, meanwhile, often focusses on a quieter “female” subject—sex dolls—as well as the online forums where men discuss them. In Skin Drips, she shows photographs and their subjects: anthropomorphic, foam-stuffed sculptures that abstract popularised and sometimes pornographic depictions of women in media. Escuerdo says that the photographs—shot in locales ranging from a mirrored 1980s motel room to deserted lakes—aim to “question what we can learn from these human-like specimens of the female body—which has been continuously pulled apart and reassembled for sexual purposes—and the surroundings that they inhabit”.
