Artists Present: Michele Beck

Michele Beck has received acclaim for her work in video and performance. In her videos she often films herself wearing costumes of her own making, concealing her entire body, head and face. In My Erotic Body, a work that could broadly be characterized as documentary, she turns her attention to the recent trends in pole dancing. An act that we associate with strip clubs and various forms of misogyny, pole dancing has been reinvented as a women-only activity, which brings together movement and eroticism in an environment totally isolated from men. Beck follows a number of women, herself included, who take pole dancing classes together, learning moves on the pole while wearing skimpy outfits and stilettos, cheering each other on, while they, consciously or not, explore their inner sense of sexuality, body, identity, femininity, and self-determination. Michele Beck is a visual artist who creates videos, performances, and installations about the relationship between time and human life cycle, the mind/body dichotomy, and the notion of free will. Beck received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History at New York University and Master of Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design. She teaches video production and new media classes at the New School University and the International Center for Photography.