This is Shahnoza – Shahnoza Pole Dancer
This is Shahnoza – Shahnoza Pole Dancer
Unsigned Print
Julian Opie
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243 x 60cm, Edition of 1000, Screenprint
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Meaning & Analysis
Julian Opie’s This Is Shahnoza – Shahnoza Pole is a vinyl print from 2007 that shows a full-length image of a naked woman dancing around a pole. Opie depicts the human form in a highly stylised manner showing the model’s head as a blank circle, without a neck and her feet cut off, showing only straps for shoes.
Opie was initially inspired to respond to a room of Henry Moore sculptures, mostly reclining nudes, for a mural in the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2006. The artist sought to find a way to produce images of a woman in these poses without conventional props like a bed, chair or even the floor. With a desire to liberate the human body from gravity, Opie asked a professional pole dancer, Shahnoza, to pose for him in a variety of choreographed moves.
This Is Shahnoza – Shahnoza Pole Dancer represents Opie’s clever blending of high art, graphic design and contemporary life. Working with the female nude, a subject that has preoccupied artists for generations, Opie unsettles the viewer’s assumptions of what constitutes high art by presenting an image that is more likely to be found in a ‘gentleman’s club’ than in an art gallery setting.