Fortis Feminae is a group of works that deal with the expectations and stereotypes associated with female body image. The project is based around the figure of Wilgefortis, a female Catholic saint from 11th century legends, who is depicted in these tales with a beard. According to legend, her father wanted her to marry against her will, and against her vow of chastity – so she prayed to God to strip her of her beauty. Waking up one day with facial hair, she was crucified by her angry father. Wilgefortis would become the patron saint of women who had suffered abuse and wanted to escape the cruelty of men. Simon picks up this story to focus on the continued oppression of women, and the symbolism of women's body hair as 'masculine'. The project includes a self-portrait of the artist with a beard, a sculpture of a crucified Wilgefortis, and a fanzine linking the mediaeval story to the present day. Simon's work also seeks to break down the taboo of representation around female hair, addressing the representational, cultural, physiological and psychological aspects of hirsutism – the phenomenon of increased female body hair growth.
According to the logic of binary oppositions, the man, by creating or colonising the woman for himself, also constructs himself in relation to her, or more precisely, over her. If female beauty, femininity, or the appearance and spectacle of the woman is a construction – shaped and upheld by men – then the spectacle of a man must also be called into question and made the subject of research. In Alexandru, Zsuzsi Simon casts a female gaze on the construction of masculinity and its associated stereotypes. Through her subversive process, Simon inverts the remake of Jeff Wall's famous Picture for Women (1979). Although Wall had already deconstructed the traditional male-female, creator-model roles, Simon’s picture displays the man floating in the aura of his self-conscious masculinity – as the muse of a female creator. The first phase of a larger research project into masculinity, Alexandru studies men through the analytical, critical, yet admiring gaze of a woman, employing conflicting metaphors of masculinity, strength, manliness, violence and vulnerability. The project shows the image of a man formed by himself – what he is proud of, what he wants, what he hides – as well how he is seen by a woman.
Some people modify their cars, wear make-up or pimp their gardens, while others beautify their body hair; hair that usually brings disapproval. But if it's adorned, do we still see it as ugly or as something beautiful? Does it change our body image if we take care of it and tidy it up? Would you wear an embellished pubic hair wig on a date? Or shiny armpit hair when you go to the beach?
Zsuzsi Simon
Zsuzsi Simon (b. 1988) is a photographer and videographer living and working in Budapest. In 2015, she graduated from the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. Her research interests cover questions of feminism, body image and activism. The ways in which women think about the world is also central; she is particularly interested in the image of the female body and the expectations that come with it. Through close collaboration with groups of women – and a trademark blend of humour, provocation, irony and honesty – Simon aspires to break down various taboos. More recently her work has explored masculinity, and the role of the male muse from a female perspective. Simon is a member of Secondary Archive, which brings together women artists from Central and Eastern Europe for greater visibility.
