"Lick and Lather" by Janine Antoni, 1993–1994

Antoni uses intimate activities to shape art and explore gender stereotypes

Since the mid-1990s, New York–based artist Janine Antoni has employed her body as a tool, in her words, to create art. In her "Lick and Lather" series, shown here, Antoni molded her own likeness in soap and chocolate, before bathing with the former and licking the latter until the surfaces were abraded and her features obscured. "Lick and Lather" thus upends portrait traditions premised on likeness by erasing the subject and posing questions about cultural definitions of feminine identity.