Edouard Manet, Olympia (1865)
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, The Bridge (2010)
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas (1939)
My mini-exhibit aimed to highlight and explore the viewing relationships that an artist can create between subjects and an audience. The exhibition space was a small black room with two holes on the wall across the entrance, positioned slightly below eye level. This hopefully would make the viewing experience feel like one of spying and draw viewers’ attention to the act of looking itself, specifically how the artists have constructed that act. Through the first hole on the left one would see Manet’s Olympia, a piece that very much emphasizes the subject’s “to-be-looked-at-ness,” as Laura Mulvey might say. Through the subject’s eye contact and body language it is quite evident that she exists, a least in the work, predominantly to satisfy the (likely male) viewer. Right next to this hole, one would look through to see Akunyili Crosby’s The Bridge, which depicts a highly intimate moment shared by a couple. The subjects seem to exist for each other rather than for the viewer, which is supported by Akunyili Crosby’s compositional choice to angle their bodies away from our point of view. The third artist I am introducing is Frida Kahlo. My decision to include Kahlo as the last artist stems from a desire to explore the subject-viewer relationship when that subject is also the artist. Self-portraiture is particularly fascinating because the artist-subject gets to control, as much as an artist can control their own work, how they are represented. In The Two Fridas, Kahlo literally puts her heart onto the page, presenting the audience with a glimpse into her physical and emotional states while maintaining the ultimate ability to control that presentation. One thing I would like viewers to consider is what factors influence subject agency in relation to the viewer as well as the artist.
I’m fascinated by how you’ve conceived of this peephole. I can definitely imagine the slight jolt of shock that comes upon first looking at the third painting. The direct awareness that the subject-artist is showing subverts the viewer’s expectation of how possesses the power to look after they view the first two.
You had an intriguing pairing to begin with and I really enjoyed your emphasis of subjects acting for the viewer’s pleasure versus acting for their own pleasure. By adding the Frida Kahlo as your third piece, you’ve forced me to consider each of these works in an entirely different way, thinking about agency of the subject. I would be interested to see is how Kahlo depicts other subjects differently from herself – how does her work reflect a shift back to the subject having no agency in comparison to the artist?