Brawn and fine art, cocktails and heady musings. It's not so unusual -- the human body has long been a source of pleasure, contemplation and athleticism. Fusing sculpture and painting with bodybuilding seemed natural to Roberto Santiago, director of communications and marketing at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale.

He's banking on the match. Slated to unfold on Thursday, The Muscular Body as Living Art will feature bodybuilders posing on pedestals as they attempt to recreate seven iconic artworks. Among them are Michelangelo's David, Rodin's The Thinker, and the more recently fashioned Rosie the Riveter. Painted in 1942 by American graphic artist J. Howard Miller, the poster zooms in on a kerchiefed woman flexing robust biceps and proclaiming ``We Can Do It!''

A panel of humanities professors from Nova Southeastern University will provide running banter, and body-centric pop songs, like Diana Ross's Muscles, will furnish the soundtrack. Afterward, the seminal bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron will be screened on the sculpture terrace while guests partake in an open bar.

If the evening seems more like soiree than symposium, that's precisely the point.

``The audience we're aiming for is the gym and fitness crowd. We're also marketing heavily to young professionals, the gay and lesbian community, and especially to people whose eyes would normally glaze over if you invited them to an art lecture.

''This is a fun event, a way of drawing people into the museum and experiencing it,'' adds Santiago. ``But I also want them to walk out of here knowing more about classic musculature images in art. I want them to think about how we look at these men and women. Why are these bodies considered beautiful in art and, sometimes, not so in life? It's something to think about.''

WEIGHT GAIN

Santiago's interest in bodybuilding was piqued while he was working as a reporter in New York, covering the 9/11 attacks. Stress and erratic hours brought along a 40-pound weight gain. Santiago slimmed down with the help of Weight Watchers, and he taught himself how to re-configure his body by reading muscle magazines and books. Yet a few years later, he had once again racked up the pounds.

This time, Santiago signed up with a professional trainer and wrote about his progress in a series of articles for The Miami Herald. In May 2005, just five months after he began, he competed in an amateur bodybuilding contest and won the Men's 35 and Over lightweight division.

During his quest, Santiago lost 30 pounds, gained muscle and shaved his body fat from 22 to 10 percent. His blood pressure and cholesterol numbers also went down. In his last story for the series, his before and after pictures were published; they showed a potato-shaped schlump alongside a bronzed and taut man. Some call his efforts an act of inspiration.

''Bodybuilding is an art,'' says Peter Potter, vice president and promoter for the NPC Southern States Fitness, Figure, Bikini and Bodybuilding Championships. Now in its 29th year, the competition is the largest of its kind in Florida.

The championship kicks off the day after the museum event, and from its ranks of entrants Potter selected the bodybuilders who will assume the stance of the sun god Apollo and his doomed nymph, Daphne.

``You look at all the Greek and Roman statues -- these are not based on people with pot bellies," Potter explains. ``These were people who were extremely fit. What a sculptor creates with marble, a bodybuilder makes by working on his physique to create a more symmetrical shape. It's almost an idealization. It's taking a body and transforming it.''

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