Harbored within this image is a stirring elegy to despair of the human condition. The voluptuous form of the buttocks is rendered with naive, jejune lines, and drips with Freudian connotation. This symbolic rendering of the young anal-fixative mind serves as an eloquent metaphor for life in the modern age. The viewer is confronted with a disturbing representation of childlike innocence focused on intensely sexual emotions, paralleling our times’ mix of rampant industrialism and undeveloped social impulse. Yet there is still a strong sense of hope about this striking image, particularly in regards to the upwardly inclined cheeks which seem almost to stare longingly into the aether. Heroic, Randian, this youthful Übermensch seeks transcendence through self-empowerment. Yet the future of the Modern Man is still uncertain, a fact which is highlighted by the innovative composition. The figure is suspended in an ambiguous void wherein it is uncertain whether it is falling into the black pitch of Nihilism at the bottom of the frame or lifting itself up from that Blackness unto Paradise. “It is up to you”, the artist seems to tell us, “to decide your own fate!”
(via langolier-s)
