Reclaiming the Gaze

Ana Mendieta Untitled 1973

Holley 2021

John Berger "Ways of Seeing"

"You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and called the painting, Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure" (51) 

"women are depicted in quite a 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 the flatter him"  (64) 

Mickalene Thomas -Photographed, Collaged and Painted Muses 

"By portraying real women with their own unique history, beauty and background, I’m working to diversify the representations of black women in art"

"commentary on how female bodies are brutally picked apart in contemporary visual culture" 

    In this week’s reading, we discussed how women were represented in media and art. Both in the Berger chapter and the Thomas article, they explain how women are chopped into pieces to create visuals to appeal to the spectator. Berger really emphasizes how multiple women were used to creating a nude of one woman and Thomas used her artwork to show how a woman is taken apart to her pieces that will appeal to visual arts. Berger made a good point, that the spectators are always assumed to be male. Women are also depicted to appeal to the male gaze. This coincides with Thomas’s article because in her article she is shifting from the male gaze and takes a different perspective on gender. She incorporates other aspects of her life into her art such as her race, culture, and history. Her art is tackling the male gaze that Berger explains.