The eccentric and innovative ways in which the arts have turned the body into a veritable battleground for freedom.

Our bodies say a lot when they are free to express themselves. The trousers Marlene Dietrich wore when she arrived in Paris in 1930 caused a sensation because they spoke not only of a dominant sexuality, but of a woman who was challenging the stereotypes of male power, becoming a vampire of energy rather than a pious woman. The turgid breasts that blossomed from Marilyn Monroe’s dress as she sang Happy Birthday, Mister President to her lover on 19 May 1962 alluded to a new woman, rebellious against the conventions of marriage, virtue and the good wife. The long fringes of the Beatles in the early 1960s said that boys were no longer willing to accept the typical constraints of man-boys, even in the mutant form embodied by Elvis Presley. In the visual art of the so-called avant-garde of the 1960s/1980s, the Cuban artist Ana Mendieta covered herself in mud to cling to a tree and become an integral part of it, she also lay down on the ground covered in white flowers to be absorbed by the soil and its dynamics. These are just a few of the liberated bodies this book is about.