Essay on Presence of the Human Figure in Contemporary Arts with Emphasis on the Theories of Baudrillard

In contemporary times the philosophy of human figure and the discourse of gender has become one of the greatest cultural narratives and concerns of the west. In the postmodernist art and philosophy, inclination towards extroversion is one of the main constituents, which means an extra leniency to expose gender through repetitious trials and unheroic representations of figures. According to Baudrillard, in contemporary times because teleonomic power has replaced theological power, pornography by doubling the sexual signs and relying on the power of media has become so widespread that everything in contemporary culture is related to sexuality. Signs of sexuality and seduction shadow culture, media, art, power exchanges, capitals and even politics. But in semiotic structures however, no sign in its function is distinct, abstract or self-standing and its presence only becomes valued and identified by multidimensional and differential relations with other signs of meaningful disciplines. It can therefore be said that since the extensive presentation of meanings and sexual images in the media and other arenas have become as signs of sexuality, then in fact nothing is sexual anymore and the widespread signs of sexuality have lost their fetishistic quality. For the same reason, at times even the human figure in contemporary art appears as an object in which the relation between the parts and organs has been altered. The element of part-object in contemporary art is abundantly considered in lieu of visual design and a replacement for the human figure in whole. This extends to the point that more daringly in order to objectify the body and the issue of sexuality, mutilated dolls represent human figures, placing it in the genre of still life on one hand and human as a victim of post- modernist era on the other. Such bodily tokens simultaneously portray seductive attributes and emasculation. In fact, it can be said that the proliferation of signs and their coherence in various meaningful disciplines has caused the post- modernist sexual wisdom to decline to the point of vanish and become only simulacrum. The representation of ‘human figure’ in the arts also follows this philosophy. Naked images in contemporary art are neither symbols of mystic salvation or symbols of humanity nor are they instruments of provocation. They have no fetishistic properties or a form of social objections and ultimately they are not even sexual beings (male/female) but only a sign has become a form of imminence of culture as result of endless repetitions and blending with various cultural areas and for that matter it has become meaningless and close to its last horizon of existence. In the current article, the method of research was qualitative. Considering that the study was conducted utilizing the findings that related to the past and critiques and analysis and review of artworks involved past events, therefore this study is one of a historical research. The compilation of information in this article involved study of library documents and books. The information obtained were eventually for analysis through scientific inductive method in the sense that by putting together of details, more general results were obtained.