Saturday May 17th, 2008
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Sphinx: The Twisted Lies Of Yoga & Kate Moss
Posted by Spiros Antonopoulos on April 20, 2006 - 4:40pm.
Last week the Guardian UK debuted images of a highly anticipated new work: a bronze sculpture cryptically titled Sphinx by Young British Artist Marc Quinn. It depicts a woman of ubiquitous beauty, supermodel Kate Moss, slithering hauntingly into yogic posture (specifically, Dwi Pada Sirsasana).
It’s not unusual for works of art to toy with irony, and this piece is no exception. Although images of Kate Moss may have ambivalently hinted at yoga, she does not practice yoga, nor does she lead a yogic lifestyle. Seven months ago, many of her biggest clients dropped her due to a drug scandle which erupted when the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror featured grainy photos of the supermodel cutting lines of cocaine.
But it's a more subtle sense of irony in equipoise that twists a deeper critique. As artist Marc Quinn elaborates, "This is not a portrait of a person, it's a portrait of an image twisted by our collective desires. She is a knotted Venus of our age." When we gaze upon this piece, we cannot help but be allured. But is she truly happy?
Many of you probably attend yoga classes, and this piece asks why. Why do you go to yoga? How many of you look at images of poses and try to physically emulate these ideals? Even as you strive towards healthy living, the twist is that perhaps these ideals amount to an unhealthy rat race. Quinn casts this symbolic beauty into a contorted idol. Sphinx is both the fruit and the folly of our desires. Here rests the irony of advertising, the lies set before us by celebrity and advertising: we measure our self-worth against the manufactured specters that are not real. Kate never did that pose.
"She's ubiquitous, she never speaks publicly and so she's someone who has this muteness, the silence that allows people to project onto her image, continues Quinn in the New York Times. It's certainly something to contemplate, the riddle of this new Sphinx, as you roll out your yoga mat: "Why am I practicing yoga?"
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The root of the word Sphinx is "to strangle," linguistically marking the prisms through which our culture views yoga.
Yoga is commonly conceived by non practitioners as an exercise in masochistic contortion, as tying onself in knots. This is true in a sense: the "yokish" aspect of the practice does work to reconnect or bind one's disparate selves together. It is also decidedly not a knotty process; to the contrary--from Sphinx we get our word sphincter, and everyone knows you can't get far in yoga clenching your rectum. But how many of us have felt a fakir's pride in holding a difficult pose, and in that moment, how many of us have said to ourselves, I'm ready for my closeup?
The Sphinx got her name from her custom of strangling those who answered her questions incorrectly. Metaphorically this implies a connection between hotheaded, reactionary thinking, and tightness, agitation, or double binds. Mindfulness wins the day. Oedipus could not have solved his riddle (and vanquish the Strangler!)if he hadn't been willing to open his mind and see the big picture. Both art and yoga ask us to do the same.
Well put. Thank you!
One small caveat, your wonderful Sphinx-sphincter analysis dead ends into a bit of a misnomer. Clenching one's rectum is actually often a prescribed method for learning about mulabhanda, or the root lock. David Life of Jivamukti Yoga has a pretty good article about it HERE, at Yoga Journal.
It's counter intuitive, and ultimately different from the muscular process of clenching one's anus, but it's a key towards learning to control the flow of prana in the body.
I was told by someone who is practicing to be a yoga instructor, that the whole idea about yoga is to do what you can do and to not compare yourself to anyone. The idea that you have to be flexible and agile is the one that he is protraying and that defeats the entire practice of yoga.
Very disillusioned
Isn't the whole idea of competing or imitating a total contradiction to the principles of yoga? I'm not devoted to the practice, but have always been intrigued as to how far it can actually take you. I've noticed that ever since I joined lime, this interest has been growing, increasingly.
But yes, I get the irony, I think.
I think we have all said the same thing and agree that this pose is a total contradiction to the practice of yoga.
Great minds think alike. I am confused about what interest you are refering to. Please clarify.
I also joined a Yoga class some months ago and find it to be very 'healing' as well as very healthy as it keeps the body subtle, supports the 'right' breathing and it is very very relaxing. In my class are only 3 participants, so we really get a lot of individual time and help of our instructor. There is no pressure nor do any of us feel that we are competing with each other. You do what you 'can' and in time any of the poses would improve anyway....
viola www.dare2baware.com www.shamanicjourney.com www.home-schooling-uk.com www.fun-tavels.com