BUM

Artist: Pauline Boty

Kenneth Tynan, one of the most influential theater critics of the twentieth century, wanted to create, in his words, “a pop art ballet designed by Pauline Boty, based on paintings that focus on the principle erogenous zones”, and commissioned Boty to create pieces for this new musical production called, Oh, Calcutta!. It was an “anti-censorship” revue (with scenes written by the likes of Beatle, John Lennon, and Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett) that featured many fully naked performers. The title Oh, Calcutta! Was a play on the French saying meaning “oh what an arse you have” thus providing the inspiration for Boty’s joyously irreverent painting. The “cheeky” cartoon-like bare female buttocks are placed within the theatrical framing device of the proscenium arch. The added element of kitsch is achieved using gaudy – yellow, pink, green, red – colors. The letters BUM are spelt out in bold red letters while decoration above the arch features what appears to be a coat of arms. Questions have been raised about Boty’s secondly role in the British Pop Art movement, especially so given her appearance in the British director Ken Russell’s documentary for the BBC, Pop Goes the Easel. It gave equal billing and screen time to Boty, and three other emerging pop artists, Peter Blake, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips. Russell’s film achieved truly seminal status with critic Ali Smith calling Boty’s segment “far and away the wildest, most experimental, surreal and eye-catching part [and] still strange to the eye today”. Sue Tate, writing the BUM catalogue entry for Christie’s auction house, said the painting “could be read as a sensuous celebration of life. Yet the meaning is surely more ambiguous. We have a reified body part, set above a demonic title, BUM, rawly proclaimed in chunky san-serif lettering and revealed ‘on stage’ inviting perhaps a slap or a caning as much as a caress: Tynan’s sado-masochistic tastes and desires were well documented. Certainly, any simple celebration of sexual pleasure has been superseded by something more complex and interesting”. Tate adds that while her sex was a likely setback in being taken more seriously as an artist, Boty’s “proclaimed identification with mass culture was perhaps problematic [too] for a movement that insisted on artistic ‘detachment’ from low cultural sources in order to be taken seriously. […] In the wake of feminist interventions and postmodern collapse of hi/low cultural boundaries, the significance of the work is finally fully revealed, and it resonates profoundly with contemporary understandings and concerns”.

Oil on canvas – Pallant House Gallery