Ballet Body Corrector, 2018
Anabelle Malamug
Chipboard, gold spray paint, brass fasteners, transparent thread
The Ballet Body Corrector is a body-training device that molds the body in order to fit the ideals of a ballet dancer. Since some ballet companies desire a specific look, the product gives auditioning dancers a better chance of landing a spot in the company. It compresses the chest for a flattened appearance and stretches the arms like taffy to obtain elongated limbs.
The materiality of the piece is less relevant to the concept of the piece; however, in a way, the cheapness of the materials provides some context. The chipboard is this crappy, cheap material, while the gold spray paint and brass fasteners both give the chipboard a more refined appearance. This is representative of ballet companies’ exclusivity because these companies unfortunately care more about the appearance of dancers over their quality and talent.
It is essentially a commentary on societal ideals of beauty and also a parody of products designed to unhealthily shape the body and facial features, such as waist trainers, thigh slimmers, and lip plumpers. The product raises questions as to how far people are willing to go to conform to unrealistic beauty standards of all genders. Are we as individuals increasingly becoming more self-indulgent and self-loathing?
For the exhibition and based on the critique from the previous week, I revised the project by making the two parts of my project more cohesive. Originally, the connection between the product and the advertisement was unclear because of the pink satin background of the advertisement. In the new edition of the advertisement, the background is the same color gold as the product; the advertisement also has a digital version of the product in the corner and a link to a fake company that sells the product.
My final project related more to the ideas in my research paper. In my paper, I discussed about perfectionism in ballet and its causes and effects on its dancers. I discovered that ballet companies have set a standard on the perfect ballet body. The dancer has to weigh between 85-115 lbs, have a flat chest, have elongated limbs, have a long neck, and have a small build. In response to the outrageous demands, I created a parody machine that could give someone the ideal ballet body.
Overall, the bridge projects taught me the connection between materiality and conceptual thought. I’m not that much of a conceptual thinker, and this class has deepened my understanding of conceptual art. Specifically in bridge 3, it was the first time that I’ve considered conceptualizing through materiality over subject matter. Certain bridge projects were more unsuccessful than others, especially the group bridge projects (bridge 1 and bridge 2). Because the group projects were the first two projects, I felt that people did not get a chance to understand individual aesthetic and art. However, I think the most successful bridge project was bridge 5 because we had worked on our research papers all semester and were able to connect out ideas from seminar into studio.