Last week, for a very brief moment, something unusual appeared in the middle of Times Square. It wasn’t a marquee announcing the latest TV celebrity joining a Broadway show, or a billboard featuring a lingerie-clad model. And it wasn’t one of those cartoon mascots — the costumed Disney princesses, cowboys and space creatures — who pose for photos with tourists.
A 60-foot rubber, inflatable version of Kim Kardashian — America’s leading celebrity-sexpot-corporate icon — occupied this famous plot of land. Nearly nude save for a tiny blue bikini, Balloon Kim was there to advertise the new swimsuit collection launched by Ms. Kardashian’s fashion line, Skims.
Balloon Kim held court from an elevated platform emblazoned with the Skims label. She lay on her right side, knees slightly bent, in a pose that emphasized the figure’s torso and maximized the exposed surface area of her body. Just one part of this figure resisted our gaze: Her face, which was obscured by her raised arms, crossed at eye level, as if shielding her from a tropical glare.
You might think such a scene — lines of strangers ogling an exposed female body lying in the middle of the street — would feel unsettling or prurient, like the opening of an episode of “Law and Order.” Instead, the atmosphere felt mildly jovial, as people exchanged amused glances, shrugged, and snapped photos. Nothing untoward was happening here, because Balloon Kim seemed protected from any personal transgression.
By covering her famous face, Balloon Kim refused to return the onlookers’ gaze. She depicted no personal expression, and blocked even the depiction of any access to her interiority. This structure was not a portrait or a sculpture of Ms. Kardashian, but rather a very faithful recreation of the workings of Ms. Kardashian’s empire, which is built on the meticulously crafted project she has made of her body — a collection of highly public, highly exposed curves and spheres, sculpted and polished to perfection, displayed according to Ms. Kardashian’s diktats, and offered up as a series of ideals to be aspired to and emulated via the purchase of products.
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