BY EMMA TRELLES, Special to The Miami Herald
Brawn and fine art, cocktails and heady musings. It's not so unusual -- the human body has long been a source of pleasure, contemplation and athleticism. Fusing sculpture and painting with bodybuilding seemed natural to Roberto Santiago, director of communications and marketing at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale.
He's banking on the match. Slated to unfold on Thursday, The Muscular Body as Living Art will feature bodybuilders posing on pedestals as they attempt to recreate seven iconic artworks. Among them are Michelangelo's David, Rodin's The Thinker, and the more recently fashioned Rosie the Riveter. Painted in 1942 by American graphic artist J. Howard Miller, the poster zooms in on a kerchiefed woman flexing robust biceps and proclaiming ``We Can Do It!''
A panel of humanities professors from Nova Southeastern University will provide running banter, and body-centric pop songs, like Diana Ross's Muscles, will furnish the soundtrack. Afterward, the seminal bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron will be screened on the sculpture terrace while guests partake in an open bar.
If the evening seems more like soiree than symposium, that's precisely the point.
``The audience we're aiming for is the gym and fitness crowd. We're also marketing heavily to young professionals, the gay and lesbian community, and especially to people whose eyes would normally glaze over if you invited them to an art lecture.
''This is a fun event, a way of drawing people into the museum and experiencing it,'' adds Santiago. ``But I also want them to walk out of here knowing more about classic musculature images in art. I want them to think about how we look at these men and women. Why are these bodies considered beautiful in art and, sometimes, not so in life? It's something to think about.''
WEIGHT GAIN
Santiago's interest in bodybuilding was piqued while he was working as a reporter in New York, covering the 9/11 attacks. Stress and erratic hours brought along a 40-pound weight gain. Santiago slimmed down with the help of Weight Watchers, and he taught himself how to re-configure his body by reading muscle magazines and books. Yet a few years later, he had once again racked up the pounds.
This time, Santiago signed up with a professional trainer and wrote about his progress in a series of articles for The Miami Herald. In May 2005, just five months after he began, he competed in an amateur bodybuilding contest and won the Men's 35 and Over lightweight division.
During his quest, Santiago lost 30 pounds, gained muscle and shaved his body fat from 22 to 10 percent. His blood pressure and cholesterol numbers also went down. In his last story for the series, his before and after pictures were published; they showed a potato-shaped schlump alongside a bronzed and taut man. Some call his efforts an act of inspiration.
''Bodybuilding is an art,'' says Peter Potter, vice president and promoter for the NPC Southern States Fitness, Figure, Bikini and Bodybuilding Championships. Now in its 29th year, the competition is the largest of its kind in Florida.
The championship kicks off the day after the museum event, and from its ranks of entrants Potter selected the bodybuilders who will assume the stance of the sun god Apollo and his doomed nymph, Daphne.
``You look at all the Greek and Roman statues -- these are not based on people with pot bellies," Potter explains. ``These were people who were extremely fit. What a sculptor creates with marble, a bodybuilder makes by working on his physique to create a more symmetrical shape. It's almost an idealization. It's taking a body and transforming it.''
SCULPTED BODIES
The museum's fete to the physical is modeled on a similar affair held in 1976 at New York's Whitney Museum of Art, which featured its own strand of scholars who commented on legendary title-holders Frank Zane, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ed Corney as they flexed before a mob of art mavens and gym enthusiasts. At the Whitney, the three men were the artists and their bodies, the medium.
''There's a definite connection between strength and grace, although sometimes the two are not associated with one another,'' says Chetachi Egwu, an assistant professor of communications and performance studies at Nova who will sit with the panel at the Museum of Art. She speculates there will be some discussion on how gender affects our ideas of beauty, not only in terms of women bodybuilders but across popular American culture.
''Even this whole recent commentary on Michelle Obama and her arms -- she is challenging our perception of what a woman should be,'' Egwu says. ``Her arms just don't say she's in shape; they say she is a woman of power, someone to be reckoned with. Her arms are actually a metaphor. You can carry that idea over into any form of art.''
For museum curator Ruth Grim, the idea of bodybuilding as an art form is a reach. She's used to discussing art as an inanimate thing, not as a live body expressing the ideals depicted in classical painting and sculpture.
''It seems like more of a sport to me, but the desire to reproduce a perfectly muscled form has been with us for centuries.'' She concedes that bodybuilding celebrates the ancient idea of the human shape as a beautiful one. The surface of a work, then, shouldn't be taken for granted, whether found in the deeply textured exteriors of Rodin's bronzes or the well-wrought flesh of an athlete.
At the museum on yet another rain-filled afternoon, Carlos Rodriguez and Megan Aran eyeball the auditorium stage where they'll pose as art. Seating tops out at about 250, making the museum venue considerably smaller than the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, where both expect a couple of thousand to watch when they compete at the NPC.
A pretty and powerful blond, Aran, 25, confesses to a bit of stage fright. She has entered the Tall Class division of the Figure category. The championship will be her sixth event since she began training five years ago on a dare. But this is the first time she has worked with Michelangelo and the like. She does recall taking summer classes at the Lowe Art Museum as a young girl and visiting the occasional exhibit with her parents. Aran points to Botero's canvases as favorites.
``It's refreshing to see a painting based on women who are not size zero. I think a woman should have curves and a shape.''
LIKE A SUPERHERO
A contestant in the heavyweight division, Rodriguez, 32, has competed for half his life. He is soft-spoken and talks about the discipline of his sport. With his square jaw and hefty stature, he resembles some of the superheroes he liked to sketch as a boy.
``A lot of kids read comics, but I also liked to draw them. I liked to concentrate more on the anatomies. I'd take the image in my mind and transfer it on paper.
``Bodybuilders practice with mirrors instead of pages; you have to have an artistic eye and look at yourself critically to do this. You have to mold yourself over entirely. With enough practice, you know the right angles, how to hold your feet, your hands, your head. It seems easy, but it's the hardest thing to do."
Emma Trelles is an arts and culture writer in South Florida.
Caption: Bodybuilder Carlos Rodriguez poses as Myron's The Discus Thrower. MARICE COHN BAND / MIAMI HERALD STAFF
IF YOU GO
Seats are limited for this one-day "Muscular Body As Living Art" event that takes place Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 6 pm at the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale (One East Ls Olas Boulevard at Andrews Avenue in downtown Fort Lauderdale -- take I-95 to Broward Boulevard East and make a right at Andrews Avenue.).
This Thursday, July 9 event includes a reception with complimentary Presidente Beers, Guarna energy drinks, tasty hors d'oeuvres, Dj Bri Broxx, and a silent screening of "Pumping Iron," and other surprises. Call Emily McCrater at 954-262-0236 for tickets or e-mail at emccrater@moafl.org. Tickets are $15 for members. $20 if purchased in advanced. And $25 the day of the show.
