Asked in an interview to answer the question he explores in his book What Do Pictures Want, author W. J. T. Mitchell replies: “Pictures want to be kissed.”

The power of images to excite our emotions is undeniable. This seems doubly true when the picture or object depicts the unclothed human body. The “nude” remains an emblem of beauty and high aesthetic aspiration. Nakedness, on the other hand, unglamorous, tends to be read as either abject or obscene.

And what sense is to be made when the body drawn is dead? What about both naked and dead, or dead, but clothed, or a live subject rendered in such a way as to deaden feelings toward the figure as an object of desire? Does male nudity register differently?

These are some of the questions governing my selections for The Naked and the Dead [one of 17 micro-exhibitions presented in the Smart Museum of Art's 40th anniversary exhibition Objects and Voices].

A version of this article was originally published in the gallery guide to Objects and Voices.

My selection started with an Alfred Kubin print called A Corpse in the Countryside, which is probably one of the most haunting images I’ve ever seen.—Kerry James Marshall