Visualizing Voyeurism: Authored by Emily Mendelson and Eta Pastreich, Binghamton University

Rooftop Sunbather

Chen’s photorealist print depicts a topless woman in bikini bottoms with meticulous detail that lends it an almost pornographic quality. Consider how he places his subject as the object of his male gaze, even as the rhetoric around his artwork concerns itself only with color and space--commentaries that justify the objectification of the women Chen depicts for viewing pleasure. His subbather’s glasses seem to emphasize his thematization of several “looks” at once: her gaze at some unknown object; the spectacle of downtown Manhattan behind her, with the Twin Towers rising up in the distance; and, of course, our gaze upon her. In this exhibit, the subject can now ‘see’ Sherman’s work [directly to the right] reclaiming her own imagery in the context of the male gaze.
 

This page has paths:

This page references: