By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 4, 2008

There's a lesson to be learned in "Modern Love: Gifts to the Collection From Heather and Tony Podesta," although it might not be the one you expect.

The 55 works, culled from almost 250 donated to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in the past decade by the local husband-and-wife collectors, can be read as a crash course in contemporary art. One lesson you'll take away from it? As with a similar show 1 1/2 years ago in which the Corcoran Gallery of Art showcased its own stockpile of gifts from the Podestas, the human body is big.

This will come as no surprise, considering the fact that the body (specifically, the female body) has long been a subject of fascination for many female artists. Although the Podestas collect male and female artists, all of the work in "Modern Love" -- indeed all of their gifts to this museum -- are, quite naturally, by women.

In some cases, that fascination is obvious. Take Margi Geerlinks's digitally manipulated photograph "Eva II," which depicts a naked model extending her luridly enlarged tongue toward the camera. Or photographer Malerie Marder's untitled portrait of fellow artist Katy Grannan posing nude on a bed.

Other references to the body are more subtle, as with two pieces by sculptor Cathy de Monchaux, whose gorgeous works of fabric, fur, leather and metal typically waver between eroticism and violence. "Don't Touch My Waist," for instance, refers to both male and female body parts. "Red," on the other hand, with its crumpled, almost fleshy folds of crimson velvet, is pretty much all woman, evoking what is euphemistically known in artspeak as "central core imagery."

Navel-gazing -- excuse me, self-portraiture) is another sub-theme. You'll see it in the work of Anna Gaskell, Nicola Tyson, Annee Olofsson and Vibeke Tandberg, among others. The three mannequin-like figures from Mathilde ter Heijne's "Fake Female Artist Life" series are meant to represent anonymous female artists from various eras (the 1920s, 1950s and 1970s), but -- surprise! -- they all look like ter Heijne.

So it's not just any female body, it seems, that fascinates today's female artists, but my body.

Related to this is the element of performance. Icelandic Love Corporation is one such group whose art involves theatrically staged and costumed narratives. One, represented here by an enigmatic still, is from a work called "Where Do We Go From Here?," in which the four members of ILC played elfin characters. But you'll also find performance in more naturalistic works, such as the photographs of Tracey Moffat and Dana Hoey, whose art features strange psychodramas.

The body. Self-portraiture. Performance.

Those subjects are echoed again and again in "Modern Love." That tells us something about contemporary art, to be sure. But more than that, it tells us something about the Podestas and their tastes.

They're collectors, after all, not curators, motivated more by emotion ("Modern Love," get it?) than by art's historical considerations. Want a real treat? Take the show's cellphone audio tour, in which Heather switches off with Tony in talking about selected artworks and their own idiosyncratic, and often rather intimate, relationship with them.

You won't learn anything useful about, say, E.V. Day's "Celestial Pelvises," a twinkly, little mobile made of surgical wire and resin that looks like a constellation of female reproductive organs. You will, however, discover that it once held pride of place over the Podestas' dining room table.

Several gallery talks will be offered in association with the exhibition. All talks are at noon and free with museum admission.

JULY 16 "Superstars: Women Artists and the Contemporary Cult of Celebrity."

AUG. 13 "Conversation Piece: What's Going on in Cathy de Monchaux's 'Don't Touch My Waist'?"

AUG. 20 "Body in Context: The Human Form in Space."

AUG. 27 "Concepts of Beauty: The Collector's Eye and Conceptual Art."

SEPT. 10 "An Insider's View: Creating the Podesta Collection at NMWA."

Modern Love: Gifts to the Collection From Heather and Tony Podesta Through Sept. 21 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW (Metro: Metro Center) Contact:202-783-5000. http://www.nmwa.org. Hours: Open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays noon to 5 p.m. Admission:$10, students and seniors $8, free for members and age 18 and younger; free admission the first Sunday of the month. Modern Love: Gifts to the Collection From Heather and Tony Podesta Through Sept. 21 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW (Metro: Metro Center) Contact:202-783-5000. http://www.nmwa.org. Hours: Open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays noon to 5 p.m. Admission:$10, students and seniors $8, free for members and age 18 and younger; free admission the first Sunday of the month.