Maebe

Nancy Davidson’s sculpture “Maebe,” is a humorous homage to Mae West, the queen of the double entendre. Throughout her career, West faced backlash from the public for her controversial stance on women’s sexual liberation. In 1926, she was even sentenced to ten days in a New York City prison for her play Sex. Yet despite the controversy, West was a Hollywood smash and at one point was the second highest paid person in America behind only publisher William Randolph Hurst.

Davidson references West’s biography through shape and material. The archetype takes the sculptural form of an inflated latex balloon wearing a blue satin corset that is surrounded by a net and seemingly tethered to the gallery floor with ropes and sandbags. The bulbous and comical form of “Maebe” is at once trapped and yet on the verge of an escape. Like West herself, “Maebe” seems corseted by convention but is a star in spite of, or perhaps because of, that convention. The installation sits in the gallery with a slightly seductive tilt, as if to quote its inspiration: “Cultivate your curves – they may be dangerous, but they won’t be avoided.”