1980s art magazines, following French theorists, often described art as a "play of signifiers." In the present era, politics requires that play be minimized and that signifiers be clear and unambiguous. An example is Ryder Ripps' painting show at Postmasters Gallery, titled "Ho." The show plays with the tradition of the male artist and female model, and questions the relationship between sexual and commercial prostitution. The "Ho" in question is Adrianne Ho, who became Instagram-famous posting attractive photos of herself advertising various brands. Welcome to the third rail of current art world discourse.
Some writers have interpreted the show as unambiguously misogynist. Yet the artist has parodied himself in the show's documentation as a macho painter, with back to back photos of a very butch Willem De Kooning in his 1950s apartment and Ripps dressed in muscle T and rolled-up jeans, painting Ho on his iPhone touchscreen. The touchscreen paintings, outsourced to third party oil-on-canvas contractors, de-sexualize Adrianne Ho's unambiguously sexy self-images by means of funhouse mirror distortions that make her appear absurd or grotesque. This could be slut shaming or it could be repurposing soulless capitalism as a surrealist nightmare.
In an earlier, more open minded era, the gallery would be a free speech zone where the yin and yang of such ideas could be considered. That's not the era we're living in.