Review

"Dance Party 4," Ink on Paper.

Dominique Elkind

8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Muddy's Coffee House
318 E. 51st.
Kansas City, MO
816.756.3121

Hours: 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Runs through: Feb. 28.

Artist's site: http://www.dominiqueelkind.com
Gallery site: http://www.muddyskc.com

On the surface, Dominique Elkind's line drawings seem slick, glamorous ... and, at first look, more than a little empty on the emotional front.

In one drawing after another, women in various states of scanty dress stretch, pose and otherwise arrange themselves, sometimes alone (as in Dance Party 4, pictured above) and sometimes in the company of staring but somehow distracted-looking men.

But make no mistake: This cheesecake has a bite of its own.

Elkind's work, on display through the end of this month at Muddy's Coffee House near the UMKC campus, deals with the heady coupling of sex and power ... but from a different perspective.

It's a truism that power is an aphrodisiac. As Elkind sees and draws things, though, it's the other way around.

Call it the Lysistrata Principle, if you like: The desire of men empowers women.

The girls in my drawings are choosing to be flirty and childish with the awareness of the power that comes from it, Elkind writes. It can be powerful to be desired and looked at. Their power is in reserve, as they can choose to be helpless but also have the availability to exert control.

There's objectification going on here, in other words, but who's being exploited? Not the women in Elkind's drawings. They know they're being watched, but their expressions make it clear that it's their choice.

In this regard, I believe my work’s relative place in the history of contemporary art would a contemporary feminist twist on the historical American pin-up girl, she writes. I am creating work to continue the dialogue begun by third wave feminists and address own our desires as women and what it means to be a sexually attractive female in our own fantasies.

That dialogue exists not in spite of prurient interest, but because of it. It's a truth, sad or not, that Elkind's drawings would have less power to spark dialogue if the women in them were not conventionally attractive.) This is, too, a conversation in which men not only can but should participate.

(Hey, Aristophanes got it, and he was a guy.)

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