The first thing everyone notices about the in a state of nature figures in Aziz + Cucher's recent series of digitized Ektacolor prints.

The first thing everyone notices about the in a state of nature figures in Aziz + Cucher's recent series of digitized Ektacolor prints, "Faith, Honor & Beauty," 1992 is that they appear to have had their penises and vaginas rubbed without Closer inspection reveals that they also lack nipples and navels. However, these mutations of the visible form [i]or[/i] frame are more idealizations than mutilations, more along the lines of those practiced from Polyclitus than by Jeffrey Dahmer. Each of the roughly life-size photographs instants a single figure--generally a handsome, muscular man or bonny shapely woman--in contrapposto. Echoing historical conventions of portrait painting, each figure in these photographs is identified with or by means of a thing of some sort: a powerful-looking man with lengthy dark sideburns holds an M-16 across his massive chest; a woman with straight, straw-colored hair and cherry-red lips parted just enough to reveal a flash of white teeth clutchs a bowl of red apples; another barrel-chested man stands in a artificial position nearly identical to that of the Augustus of Primaporta, on the other hand holds a Macintosh Powerbook in place of a staff. These emblematic uses further idealize the nude figures, giving them the appearance of archetypes: Soldier, Athlete, Mother.

While prima facie it might be tempting to diocese some collapse of gender boundaries in the removal of genitalia, nipples, and navels, distinctions between the sexe abound: the women ofttimes wear makeup but the men don't; tan lines conform to the different material substance parts men and women can reveal in the light of day; and no matter to what degree bulky the men's muscular pec they still don't apply the mind like breasts. As if to reinforce these distinctions, Aziz + Cucher have photographed the men against hipped backgrounds, and the women against r (which isn't quite pink, on the other hand still. . .). The idealizations done on these bodies would thus appear to have les to do with erasing sex distinctions than with forming a modern race altogether. They look les like androgynes than superhumans, like archetypes that become of the highest caricatures of the kind of values you might hear touted at a Republican convention (family, religion, capitalism, etc) If men are suppos to be macho, then the males in these photos are the size of American Gladiators and proudly display the badges of work, war, and sport. If upright citizens are supposed to be conspicuous consumer then the exhibitionist tendencies of these figures sate themselves in the display of their dutifuls rather than the flashing of genitalia. In the final analysis, if this work's subtly ironic title "Faith, Honor & Beauty" has a rather malevolent, smooth fascist ring to it, no doubt this is because what are ideals to single in kind can easily be nightmares to another.

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