Nude against religious oppression
Earlier this year there was some consternation about nude model Marisa Papen posing nude in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, or at least in the vicinity of it, and later she did the same in the Hagia Sofia mosque in Istanbul. A year earlier she spent time in an Egyptian jail cell for posing nude in front of some monuments.
Recently she was elected ‘most beautiful nude woman on Instagram’ or something like that and had a French television channel interview her completely in the nude.
I don’t know why Papen, who is said to be Belgian (but sounds like and mimics an American), answers her French speaking interviewer, Léa Salamé (incredible eyes), in English, but I like the complete ease of her nudity which Salamé says makes her a little uncomfortable.
Papen claims to ‘desexualise’ nudity, which Salamé finds ridiculous. “Are you serious?” she asks wih a smile. Papen says she tries to wear her nudity in an “animal-like way”.
She poses nude in front of sacred sites to combat the oppression of women by religion but her intent is not to shock, but to resist religious control of humanity. Furthermore she thinks her work is neither purely artistic or political, since the two are intertwined,
Asked by which famous painter she would like to be painted, Papen answers Modigliani and Dalí. (PB)
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