Adrienne Rivera, Under Attention Tutelage, 2024
Stills from Mendieta’s 35mm short film Sweating Blood, 1973
Female Gaze: Art that Looks at What Women See | NYTIMES
1. “So is there such a thing as a “female gaze?” Ms. Vischer said that she ultimately concluded that there probably was no single way to define how women artists perceive their subjects. But she did concede: “The female artists’ gaze is shaped by their lived experiences, which are different for women and men.” For Mr. Grau, the female gaze might be defined as simply training one’s eyes on different subject matter, in new ways. “Looking is a way of world-making,” he said, “and it’s political.””
- I took this point to heart because I feel it expresses the variety of what the female gaze can be. Oftentimes, it’s not the obvious. it’s not the sexual connotations or expectations societally that we experience, but more nuances parts of our existence that is a very part of our reality and therefore our politics. Oftentimes too, sexuality can be intertwined with these, but there a foreground that we need to provide context for.
Ana Mendieta: Artist Who Pushed Boundaries | NYTimes
1. The making of my ‘Silueta’ in nature keeps the transition between my homeland and my new home,” she once said. “It is a way of reclaiming my roots and becoming one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and cultural identity are a result of my Cuban heritage.”
-I related very much to Mendieta’s themes of nature, reclaiming her roots, and creating a home in a new home all coming back from her culture. I think this is something that many Latinos of all descent can relate to and is a tradition even carried on the children of those who immigrated as well. It’s a powerful thing to know where you came from and who’s you are so that you can know where you’re going.
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Chapters 2+3
"The contradiction can be stated simply. On the one hand the individualism of the artist, the thinker, the patron, the owner: on the other hand, the person who is the object of their activities – the woman – treated as a thing or an abstraction."
Oftentimes, the woman has to be both the artist and the muse now if not to be confined to the historically over representation of female muses to male (white) artists of art history.
"To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself."
-This quote resonated with me because as a woman naturally we understand what it means to be confined in a tight space of who we are supposed to be, and this is always in regards to men. As woman, we have to see ourselves oftentimes through the lens of the male figures and masculine-dominate society in order to determine our space instead of being encouraged to carve our own. This is something I think all women struggle with, and in their own small or big ways everyday go against this.
++Be prepared to answer the questions: What is the Male Gaze? Female Gaze? Write down responses to these questions as part of your response.
Women are traditionally viewed through the white, heterosexual male perspective. This allots to the female subjective being objectified, sexualized and positioned as passive or submissive. The male is usually in a dominating position over women. & this especially with the rise of easily accessible medias and patriarchal culture that takes advantage of its women & women are reduced to objects of male desires, and our value becomes based on the way a woman is viewed by her male counterparts.
I question if the female gaze is natural or a response to the male gaze. While as a surface level, it may focus on aesthetics rather than overt sexuality, it often centers women’s experiences, emotions, and the nature of subjectivity itself.
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