The Divine Gas

Reginald Themistocle
September 30, 2007
Intro To Digital Imaging
Prof. Cat Mazza

The Divine Gas

The Institute of Contemporary Art is known to have artwork from current
artists and displays art and materials of today. The mural shown when
visitors enter is called by “The Divine Gas.” According to the ICA website,
Japanese artist Chiho Aoshima drew this on a computer and printed on a huge
vinyl sheet. The mural shows a young girl in a lush landscape, passing gas.
Out of that gas, smaller girls emerge and frolic around the composition.
Although it seems like an innocent and ambitious work, Aoshima tells her
views by playing on roles of gender and sex. All of the women are shown
skinny, perky breasts, round faces, huge eyes, little noses and mouths,
vaginas shaven, and small feet. Aoshima is telling the visitor that this
ideal perception of how not only men in Japan see the ideal woman, but how
other races might see the ideal woman, Japanese or not. The giant girl is
the focus because she is the largest piece in the mural. Viewers would look
directly at the face and into those huge, deer-like eyes and see a tear
coming from her left eye. Aoshima sees this as a criticism that women might
not like sex. And it also plays to the “norms” of sexual positions. The girl
is in the sexual position called doggy style with her butt in the air as she
is ready to receive a penis or is being raped. This compilation also shows
how certain conventions are shown not being lady-like, or not how ladies
behave. In society is seems improper for a woman to release gas, or fart. In
other words it is ugly for girls to fart, yet for men, it is funny or normal
or masculine. Unlike Bosch’s Garden of Earthy Delights, (which the website
compared it to) the sides of good and evil are more hard to find, due to the
simplicity and several hidden meanings of the piece. Aoshima was smart to do
it in the anime style, further illustrating the conventions of women in a
different medium. In my honest opinion, many female characters in anime are
submissive. They are portrayed as little, cute, and skinny with supple
breasts who the guys like over and they want to be saved by the hero. Girls
who are taller or bigger or just don’t show the conventional “anime beauty”
are either regarded as a giant, masculine, or probably ugly. I always
wondered why these “perfect” girls come across as boring. What I liked about
this was that it pretty-looking (there is a difference), but there was so
much to say about it and read about it. The poses were not the Venus poses.
Without the image of men in it, it still illustrates the struggle of the
female wanting to be with a man, but struggling to retain herself also.
Chiho Aoshima constructed a wonderful mural that is beautiful, yet that it
sends the message to women and men to not find answers when asked the
question of what beauty is.