Bodies Past and Present was a student exhibition by the MOCA Society in collaboration with the University of Cambridges' Museum of Classical Archaeology, co-curated and directed by Connor Phillips alongside Miriam Mitchell. It was present in the cast gallery from October 2023 to January 2024.

The exhibition utilises the historical context of the gallery to explore the representation, presentation and reception of depictions of bodies from antiquity to the modern day. Furthermore, the contemporary work is entwined within the existing collection, forming a unique opportunity for conversation between the interacting modern and ancient works. 

Connor's contribution to the exhibition took the form of two large oil paintings ( 210 x 300cm) that respond to the Hellenistic statue, 'The Wrestlers'. By putting his own body through the experience of wrestling, the embodied sensory and emotional information gained was used to inform the compositions, building on the photographic references. The two paintings discuss the transition from Archaic to Hellenistic forms of representation by imagining how this would come to fruition within a contemporary figurative oil painting practice.

Moreover, representing the same subject matter as 'The Wrestlers' in a new medium brings into focus Kenneth Clark's distinction between 'Nude' and 'Naked'. In a setting of realistic oil painting and the context of the gallery, the figures may become naked and sexualised, revealing the homoeroticism of the subject matter. The paintings play with this dynamic.

Links

https://www.varsity.co.uk/arts/26701

https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/events/bodies-past-and-present

https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/museum/exhibitions/exhibitions/bodies-past-and-present