Female Gaze: Art that Looks at What Women See | NYTIMES
"They created a shift, a change in perspective, from being the model, the person a painter is looking at, to being the painter herself."
Thinking about European painting traditions it is incredible how far we have come. From the days of Édouard Manet's Olympia to the paintings of Frida Kahlo, there was a palpable shift in the landscape of portrait painting and self portraits. The way we see things are relative and influenced by the world in which we come from, thus breaking out of the conventional and expected ushered in a new way of seeing through the female gaze. As mentioned in the quote, women went from being a model that was being painted by the artist to becoming the artist painting themselves. In that change we can see how differently women are portrayed when painting themselves versus through the eyes of a man. The subjectivity, point of emphasis, and its essence has fundamentally changed when women reclaimed the gaze.
Ana Mendieta: Artist Who Pushed Boundaries | NYTimes
"These questions would echo in her work, which explored themes that pushed ethnic, sexual, moral, religious and political boundaries. She urged viewers to disregard their gender, race or other defining societal factors and instead connect with the humanity they share with others."
So often in this life we are defined by our gender, ethnic background, culture, religion, etc. and it's important to remember that in the midst of all the things that make us different we are still human together. I appreciate that she approached her work in this manner because when we think about the macro we realize the underlying connection between us is the humanity we share. It's easy to label works as about women-hood or being a certain race but the larger connection could always be drawn back to our existence as human beings, and that is when the barrier between sex and ethnicity can be broken down into conversations that address the macro.
John Berger, Chapters 2+3
"In the art-form of the European nude the painters and spectators-owners were usually men and the persons treated as objects, usually women. This unequal relationship is so deeply embedded in our culture that it still structures the consciousness of many women. They do to themselves what men do to them. They survey, like men, their own femininity."
"Women are depicted in a quite different way from men - not because the feminine is different from the masculine - but because the 'ideal' spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him."
In this chapter John Berger makes the distinction between the nude and the naked. The nude is to be objectified by the viewer, as an object, versus nakedness is a state of being. With the nude, the skin becomes the outfit and is prepared to be seen by the viewer, the spectator-owner. As explained by Berger, women do not seek to be satisfied but are the ones to satisfy, usually the male viewer. This has been so deeply integrated into our societies that women have been indoctrinated into seeing themselves as objects for others, and for most it happens subconsciously. Thinking about the culture we're in today, makeup and alterations to the female body have become normalized. With many women going to the extreme to get surgery to achieve the 'ideal body', the male gaze has been so deeply weaved into the threads of our society that many are unaware to the reason as to why they do what they do. Even women who are aware and go against the male gaze are banished by other women and deemed as 'unattractive' or labeled as 'tomboys' as if there is one way women should be.
Untitled (Cosmetic Facial Variations), 1972
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