#metal corset
Liberator Cycles & Automobiles. 1899. Pal.
54 5/8 x 76 7/8 in./138.7 x 195.3 cm
It’s one of the most famous posters in the world: often copied, often poorly. This is the original – in the original large format of the design – and this one, in particular, has vibrant coloration and exquisite detail that we rarely see. (Note our Valkyrie’s chain-mail miniskirt, with textured rings and metallic shimmer.) Pal’s triumph here is the culmination of the “Bicycle Craze” of the 1890s, which indeed delivered liberation for female riders and sparked the modern women’s rights movement. This is the original large format of the design.
Available at auction June 26. Learn More>>
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This is an earlier piece of two moulds of the waist, one without wearing a corset, the other with. I placed the latter inside the natural waist corset. Then joining the two with copper wire wherever the two pieces met.
I decided to have a experiment with displaying the piece not on a plinth (the usual place for a sculpture) but on a wall. Where the two corsets meet (depicted with copper wire) I used lengths of copper wire to mount the piece to the wall.I pulled the wire as tight as I could so it felt as though they were going to snap under the strain.
Again the strain and pressure on the wire reflected the ties of society, pulling, twisting and deforming the body as it did with the sculpture.
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