{"id":2544,"date":"2016-09-21T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2016-08-20T07:34:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T05:34:27","slug":"rediscovering-the-radical-feminism-of-the-neo-naturists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/2016\/09\/rediscovering-the-radical-feminism-of-the-neo-naturists\/","title":{"rendered":"Rediscovering the Radical Feminism of the Neo Naturists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note<\/em>: I found this article at https:\/\/www.artsy.net\/article\/artsy-editorial-the-neo-naturists-empowered-women-to-be-wild-and-free<\/a> and am reposting it here.<\/p>\n

Rediscovering the Radical Feminism of the Neo Naturists<\/h2>\n
\n
Artsy Editorial<\/div>\n
By izabella scott<\/div>\n
Aug 17th, 2016 12:39 pm<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Neo Naturists, Swimming and Walking Experiment, Centre Point Fountains, Tottenham Court Rd, London, Aug 1984. Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive and Studio Voltaire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe Neo Naturists like taking their clothes off for the sake of it,\u201d Christine Binnie and Wilma Johnson wrote in a 1985 manifesto\u2014and that\u2019s exactly what they did. A British underground art movement born out of the 1980s, the Neo Naturists were a\u00a0body-painting<\/a>\u00a0trio of female flashers, made up of Christine, her sister Jennifer, and their friend Johnson.<\/p>\n

The artists began to appear on the London club scene around 1981, turning up at Heaven in Soho (one of London\u2019s first gay clubs) or the punk music venue The Fridge in Brixton, adorned in nothing but paint. They would perform on stage, chanting songs and throwing up their legs in an unruly version of the cancan. At other times, they\u2019d simply flash at the crowd. Beneath their overcoats they had perfected a number of looks painted directly onto their bodies, including\u00a0trompe l\u2019oeil<\/i><\/a>\u00a0lingerie, and wild, grinning faces that transformed breasts into eyes and belly buttons into nostrils.<\/p>\n

The Neo Naturists had their heyday from 1981\u20131986, but they have reformed this summer for a retrospective at\u00a0Studio Voltaire<\/a>\u00a0in London. The show is an archival assemblage of paintings, slides and photographs, low-fi videos recorded in nightclubs, newspaper clippings and other ephemera\u2014and, pressed on the gallery walls, body-prints made by the Neo Naturists themselves, some of whom painted their bodies for the first time in 20 years.<\/p>\n

Neo Naturists, Christine Binnie body painted at Central St Martins, London 1 April 1980. Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive and Studio Voltaire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The group has its roots in the punk anarchy of 1980s London, an era marked by the ruthless free market spirit ushered in by Margaret Thatcher and the subcultures that emerged in resistance to it. One of those was a cross-dressing scene known as New Romanticism, which was a breeding ground for exquisitely androgynous club kids like Boy George and Marilyn. The Neo Naturists were part of that scene, collaborating with Marilyn as well as other now-famous artists such as\u00a0Grayson Perry<\/a>\u00a0and filmmaker John Maybury.<\/p>\n

As much as they were aligned with the New Romantics, they were also satirists of them, deliberately positioning themselves in opposition to the scene\u2019s slick sophistication and skinny bodies, a form of dandyism that was largely enjoyed by men. Instead, the Neo Naturists were rebellious, curvaceous, and pagan. Their main concern was to take pleasure in the act, and to celebrate the natural forms of their bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI swapped my Flesh Tint oil paint for some blue and gold body paint and transformed her into a voluptuous version of Tutankhamen\u2019s sarcophagus,\u201d Johnson recalls\u2014in the exhibition\u2019s catalogue essay\u2014of the first time she painted Christine. They freely incorporated materials close to hand, taping household items to their bodies, and their 1985 manifesto includes an inventory: \u201cBoiled crab, shrimps, tin foil, gold leaf, paper doilies, biscuits, peanuts, bottle of wine, Scotch pancakes, contraceptive sheaths, squid, sheep\u2019s heart, bikini briefs, sausages, bacon and eggs, freezer bag wombs, apples, burning incense, knives and forks, \u00a310 notes, sequins, vitamins, tins of tuna, and of course, lots of Sellotape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Left: Neo Naturists, Swimming and Walking Experiment, Centre Point Fountains, Tottenham Court Rd, London, Aug 1984; Right: Neo Naturists, Flashing in the British Museum, Christine Binnie body painted and photographed by Wilma Johnson, British Museum London, 3 March 1982. Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive and Studio Voltaire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In one of their most iconic works,\u00a0Flashing in the British Museum<\/i>\u00a0(1982), Christine donned a shaggy coat and pranced through the British Museum, flashing her painted body beside Egyptian relics and Greek antiquities. (\u201cJust wear a big coat,\u201d she once advised would-be flashers: \u201cIt\u2019s easy!\u201d) Another performance,\u00a0Pink Punk Yoga<\/i>\u00a0(1982), at The Fridge in Brixton blended the incongruous practices of punk and meditation, while\u00a0Sexist Crabs<\/i>\u00a0(1983) at the Zap Club in Brighton was a chaotic gambol around the stage with seafood taped to their bodies.<\/p>\n

They eschewed rehearsals, preferring ritualistic improvisation, and sometimes they simply took to the streets, as in\u00a0Swimming and Walking Experiment<\/i>\u00a0(1984), when they cavorted in the fountains below London\u2019s\u00a0Brutalist<\/a>\u00a0tower block Centre Point\u2014and got arrested by the police. Occasionally, they made the headlines, outraging some conservative hacks and delighting others. \u201cHooray for the Bare Binnies!\u201d crooned the\u00a0Daily Star<\/i>\u00a0of 1984.<\/p>\n

For women to take such pleasure in their art was deeply subversive. Like all heretics, they didn\u2019t play by anyone else\u2019s rules. They opted for spontaneous exuberance, in contrast to the message of Thatcherite conservatism (be professional!) or the affected, male-dominated New Romantics (be flamboyant!).\u201cThe Neo Naturists are casual to the point of excess,\u201d their manifesto states. \u201c[They] believe that gorgeousness is the ultimate intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Left: Neo Naturists, Paper Dress at the Embassy Club with George O’Dowd as Brittania, The Coffee Spoon Embassy Club, London, 5 Sep 1980. Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive and Studio Voltaire.; Right: Neo Naturists, Private View Performance at James Birch Gallery, Kings Road London, 24 May 1984. Courtesy of james Birch and the Neo Naturists Archive, and Studio Voltaire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Studio Voltaire curator Jessica Vaughan points out, one important aspect to understand about the Neo Naturists is that their display of the female body was in no way pornographic. \u201cWhat they were doing was radical,\u201d says Vaughan, \u201cbecause they were delighting in the female form in a way that isn\u2019t titillating or sexualized, but instead is something full of humor and celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Neo Naturists did not commodify their practice, and they were never picked up by a commercial gallery. By the end of the 1980s, they had moved out of the squat they shared and dispersed. Many of the men from their circle, however, went on to become successful British artists, including Perry, Maybury, and Michael Clark. \u201cIt\u2019s not the first time that female artists were forgotten,\u201d Vaughan says, \u201cwhile male counterparts, who were incredibly influenced by the women around them, went on to become household names.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a multitude of reasons why the Neo Naturists slipped through the net. For one, nobody quite knew what to make of them. \u201cFeminists see us as porno sex cabaret, while your average person sees us as butch dykes,\u201d Jennifer said in an interview in the 1980s. \u201cWe\u2019re not either.\u201d Their work was only obliquely political, more concerned with celebrating the personal: their friendships with one another, and their bodies. \u201cThe Neo Naturists are works of art,\u201d the manifesto quips, \u201cand the world is their private view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Left: Neo Naturists, Sexist Crabs and The Cosmic Egg, Portland Bill Quarry and Sculpture Park, Portland, Yorkshire, 1 Aug 1983; Right: Neo Naturists, Black Rapport Day, Thames Beach Wapping, 17 July 1982 (Jennifer Binnie, Wilma Johnson, Nico Holah and Bruce Lacey). Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive and Studio Voltaire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It wasn\u2019t entirely over for the Neo Naturists in 1986, but they left behind a fragmented opus. Following the group\u2019s dispersal, Christine went solo and kept the movement active well into this millennium. In the 1990s, she assembled a small archive in her east London apartment, and one of the Studio Voltaire curators\u2019 projects has been to expand it. \u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to get a comprehensive overview of the movement, and a secure chronology,\u201d Vaughan says. \u201cThere\u2019s a quite a bit of guesswork because Wilma, Jen, and Christine might all remember things differently. But looking back, they were an incredible counterpoint to the queer male voices of the time, and they mustn\u2019t be overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: I found this article at https:\/\/www.artsy.net\/article\/artsy-editorial-the-neo-naturists-empowered-women-to-be-wild-and-free and am reposting it here. Rediscovering the Radical Feminism of the Neo Naturists Artsy Editorial By izabella scott Aug 17th, 2016 12:39 pm \u201cThe Neo Naturists like taking their clothes off for the sake of it,\u201d Christine Binnie and Wilma Johnson wrote in a 1985 manifesto\u2014and that\u2019s exactly … Continue reading “Rediscovering the Radical Feminism of the Neo Naturists”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,95,12],"tags":[21,92,180,365],"class_list":["post-2544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-naktivism","category-nudism-2","tag-body-painting","tag-london","tag-nude-art","tag-punk-scene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2550,"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjuzdme.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}