Looking at Ana Mendieta’s work, she addresses the feeling of being spectated as a woman through the male gaze. Often she tries to twist aspects of female anatomy that are sexualized. In this photography series (untitled) she wets her hair and twists it around her face in a messy, playful way. Hair, especially long hair, has a long history of displaying gender and sexuality in cultures around the world. (From being a general beauty standard, a display of marital status and youth). Before I cut my hair I made a post on ig and had a surprising amount of men telling me not to because “it wouldn’t be sexy” mind you I barely knew most of them, but they felt entitled to have a say because it would make me less appealing for them to see.
I chose this photo because the side profile point of view is not something we see of ourselves, but people around us constantly see. It makes the viewer more aware that they are spectating, but also makes the person in the photo the subject to be looked at.
“These hyperreal images have all the glamor and amped up sexuality as artful fashion photography...but none of the airbrushing or homogeneity of subject endemic to glossy magazines. Instead the photos question art historical traditions of objectifying women: in “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: les trois femmes noires,” a wry feminist pastiche on Manet’s notorious 1862 painting, one woman squints, her chin propped in her hand, assessing the viewer assessing her.” (Dunne).
“Thomas’s jazzy photomontages of women’s limbs and facial features can be constructed as commentary on how female bodies are brutally picked apart in contemporary visual culture.”(Dunne).
Will post the rest of the quotes later sorry
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