The catalogue includes all visual and textual works that are a part of the Engendered Species Exhibitions.

Jack Balas | Berthoud, Colorado | artist website

"All vertebrate embryos are inherently female. We all start life as females. It takes some kind of added effect—such as a hormone at the right moment during development—to transform the growing embryo into a male. But, left to its own devices, the embryo will naturally become female."
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

In the 21st century, science is still considered the holy grail of truth finding. If a scientist makes an announcement, it must be true. Never mind that other decisive factors cannot be put under a microscope, sliced or x-rayed to ascertain truth. If science says something is male or female, than it must be true. What makes human beings human, those intangible, non-measurable emotions, an unshakable knowledge that belies the visible, and certainties that cannot be measured, determines just as much who we are as a Petri dish and a microscope.

Society wants us to conform to what biology gave us: if you have a male body, you will live as a male. But what if the intangible you, the mind, the heart, the soul, doesn't match what biology gave you? What if the slippage between what you see in the mirror and what you feel becomes overpowering? Those are the issues that Jack Balas addresses in his A Smart Subversive Thesis (Mike H), part of the Studio Series. The images in the series deal with self-image, age, territory, and perception, and in A Smart Subversive Thesis (Mike H), a bare-chested young man holds a naked, female plastic torso out in front of him, covering parts of his upper body. He looks straight into the camera, returning the gaze of the viewer with firm and unwavering eyes. A sign to his left reads: a smart subversive thesis.

Balas' use of a female torso from a commercial mannequin adds another dimension to the work. The mannequin torso conforms to the norm society accepts for the female form: firm breasts, slim waist, and a shapely waist. It is the quintessence of femaleness as approved by society. Moreover, the torso is completely anonymous: without facial features it is reduced to gender only, without individuality or persona. His own appearance—ruffled hair, blushed face, naked upper body, slightly lowered pants to reveal his underwear—has a sensual, sexual, twink-like quality. In holding the female torso over his own body, the young man's gaze asks the viewer: Is this what you want me to be: anonymous gender? Or perhaps, the more poignant question is "do you prefer this anonymous gender?"

We all start life with a body, a soul, and a gender. While the body has substance and is tangible, the soul is elusive and indefinable. Gender has been thought of as substantial and definable, but as we shift from a strict scientific description of a person, it turns out that gender is just as elusive and indefinable as the soul. Coincidence? Look into the eyes of the young men in A Smart Subversive Thesis (Mike H)…..and you'll know the answer.

- by Marina Freeman

Jack Balas
A Smart Subversive Thesis (Mike H), 2004
Digital photograph