Photography Be-ing Without Clothes at the Hayden Gallery, M.I.T., until November 29

IF YOU'VE ever wondered what beauty there is in the kitchen cat or in a pregnant woman in the bathtub, then you've probably never tried to compose an aesthetic for photography. In the current exhibition at M.I.T., Minor White, professor and director of the Creative Photography Laboratory, has selected works that conceptualize "be-ingness" as the ideal form of camerawork.

Minor White could have called his photo exhibit, In Search of A New Aesthetic: Be-ingness as Ideal Form. What White means by "be-ingness" is exemplified by the difference in the relationships between the photographer and his model and between the artist and his model. Where the photographer must "energize the subject's lovingness or thought," the artist can depend upon "his artistic talent, his mind and his hand to make the drawn line come alive." Where the artist works from the model, the photographer works with the model. "In his creativity he [the photographer] is, and when he is, his model can be. "

Yet this does not deny that some artists can illustrate "be-ing" in their paintings. In the catalogue, White gives the example of Rembrandt's Bathsheba that Kenneth Clark describes in his book, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form; the viewer considers Bathsheba's thoughts transcending the moment depicted, "and yet these thoughts are indissolubly part of her body." Here is the gist of be-ing without clothes: "the presence of thought that vitalizes the whole human being."

To explain the evolution of an ideal form to accommodate the medium of camerawork, White traces the development of the nude as the ideal form in art. He draws on classic forms from Clark's Nude: Study: the Greek model of Perfect Man as god, beautiful body and well-trained athlete; the change Christianity marked as the ideal became fallen man, like Van Eyck's Adam or Eve with protruding bellies; the Renaissance resurrection of love for the human form; and then a need for the spiritualization of man as he rejects all former images of himself.

White's argument is well suited in the words of his catalogue, but by itself the exhibit does not give us enough evidence to determine what "be-ing" is, or even enough information to excite the question "what is be-ing?" From the single quote placed in the exhibition, one tends to feel that White's concept of "be-ing" is simplistic, which is proven the contrary in his catalogue.

Although it's understandable that White is drawing plans rather than constructing "be-ing" in this exhibit, what could have been illustrated more effectively is the differentiation between "nude," "naked," and "be-ing without clothes"-the last of which for White is "ultimately neither nude nor naked."

IN THE EXHIBIT are examples of the artist-photographer who pictures the "nude" as an ideal form of art: Barbara Morgan's photo "Pregnant" (a pregnant woman's torso), if it had been placed next to a reproduction of Van Eyck's Eve from the Ghent Altarpiece, certainly would emphasize the classic form. So would John Brook's "Moon in Leo" if placed next to a similarly entwined Rodin couple. Next to Christine Enos' "Richard" (a man flanked by two statues of Greek goddesses) should have been placed sculpture representations of the Greek god-athlete-man. Goodwin Harding's "emulation of the classic nude in photography" should have been put next to an Edward Weston nude to show the emulation.

Or if White wanted to point out man's rejection of the ideal human form, he should have placed Thomas Weir's wide-angled distortions next to an erotic Felician Rops engraving (especially Weir's "Untitled" [1967], next to "Satan Semant d'Ivraie" from Rops' Diabolique series). And Brian M. Katz's "Appearing Out Of," if juxtaposed with Henry Fuseli's 18th century painting "The Nightmare," would certainly illustrate distortions of reality.

"Nancy's Dream" by Robert Kirstel (a woman clutching torn dolls), if placed next to a George Cohen construction of doll arms and legs, would point out the idea of fragmenting reality of piecing the world to death. A terribly effective comparison would be a doctor's visual document of a woman with a glandular disorder aside the "Earth Mother-Enormous" of James Sahlstrand. An enlarged frame from the film Ulysses of Molly Bloom jumping into bed with her lover, certainly would augment Steve Starr's embracing couple.

If White had pointed out these aspects of "the nude" as an ideal form of art distinguished from the "naked" as an ideal form of life, maybe then we'd understand "be-ing without clothes" as a form of camerawork that is neither "nude" nor "naked." Rather, he lets a hundred photos determine his exhibition instead of locating them in relation to his statement of be-ingness as photography's ideal form.

The spirit of the Zen master captured in a (Zen) portrait, like the spirit of Zen teaching from mind to mind, is the "be-ingness" in a photograph that White proposes as an ideal form. Be-ingness is like photographing one hand clasping.