Ch 6. Woman as Sign- Psychoanalytic readings. Are Rossetti's paintings meaningless?
"mask of beauty"
"these were not faces, not portraits but fantasy" p168
"which function as a screen across which masculine fantasies of knowledge, power and possession can be enjoyed in a ceaseless play on the visible obviousness woman and the puzzling enigmas reassuringly disguised behind that mask of beauty" p170
"not as she is but as she fills his dream."- last line of Christina Rossetti poem (1856) p175
On Rossetti's 'Venus Verticordia':
'Flowers have often been used as a metaphor for women's sexuality, or rather their genitals. Here I suggest they function as a mataphor which simultaneaously acknowledges and displaces those sexual conotations covering or masking the sexualised parts of the body which are traditionally erased in the representation, even of Venus in western European art. But by covering up so excessively, the flowers draw attention both to what is absent and to the anxiety presence / absence generates in a masculine producer / viewer.' p186
'The meaning signified by this painting is not what is there but what is not, what cannot be articulated.'
'sexuality is vividly represented but in a displaced and over-anxious profusion of honeysuckles and roses which distract, mask, but signal what cannot be shown' p190
Visions of Sex Presentation: The Covered Body- Transcript.
The Covered Body
The issue of the body and sex is not related to an essential thing of the body, but to the way in which sexual difference (the bodies of men and women) are represented. Following examination of the exposed female body in various situations and forms of representation within this exhibition, this room aims to expand dialogue into the issue of the covered body, referring to the bodily gaze as a means of obliterating or enhancing perception of the female form.
The first two paintings are just one example of the development of ideas throughout the 19th to 20th centuries, addressing modes of female representation and gender issues. The excessive drapery typical of Victorian clothing within the painting by Augustus Egg reflects the very conservative ideas of bodily exposure during the era and in generations preceding it. Within Fini’s later reworking of The Travelling Companions the repressed sexuality of the excessively clothed bodies are somewhat revealed, yet Fini also takes her interpretation further by using the resolution of opposites, such as the sleeping / waking dichotomy typical of surrealist painting and the opposites of covered / exposed, to address alternative forms of androgyny.
The significance of clothing within the representation of female form has also been widely explored within feminist film theory, hence the decision to show Josef Von Sternberg’s film ‘The Devil Is A Woman’ (1935). Covering the body in the form of costume, and often in particular with veils, within sexually charged scenes and mixed gender meetings, as opposed to radically exposing it, highlights the attention which must be paid to the manipulation of the gaze and representations of sex through the veiling of the body and the masquerade which surrounds it.
In particular the relation which the covered/ exposed body has to power and threat must also be called into consideration; ‘Women covered or uncovered are still trapped in the contradictions of a law which confines them because the culture of men sees dangers all over their bodies if they escape confinement.’ (Veils Masks and Mirrors, Griselda Pollock, Correct Distance, Cornerhouse,1990)
Within the collection of photographs ‘ Women of Allah’ Shirin Neshat is perhaps raising the question of whether the chador can be used as a weapon to deflect the colonialist gaze ( a gaze which wants to know everything and understands very little). The covered body is hence subject to the notion of a radical denial of the gaze and the concomitant strategy of absence. It can be said that the veil is represented as a power to obliterate the gaze (either a gendered or a cultural one) and as a protecting curtain of the innate power existing beneath it.
The second television monitor within this room would show documentation of the performance ‘In Mourning and in Rage’ created by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz in reaction to the female rape victims of Los Angeles in the 70s. The use of veiling within a form of protest inevitably relates to the traditions of mourning and the idea of power existing within, yet has also been used as a uniform ritual enabling the women to come together as a collective statement of unity and aggressive action. The use of veils also enabled the artists to challenge common representations of women as the victim or potential victim within advertising, news and entertainment media, creating a uniform representation of the female form as powerful and somewhat threatening.
Laurie Anderson’s photo narrative installation ‘Fully Automated Nikon’ documents her process of photographing men whom made comments to her in the street. By capturing their image and then obliterating their gaze within the resulting image she is somewhat creating an alternative representation of the covered female. Her work highlights the place that the gaze has within the obliteration or enhancement of representation of the female form, and places an emphasis upon the dominance that the male observer has within ‘visions of sex’.
The issue of the body and sex is not related to an essential thing of the body, but to the way in which sexual difference (the bodies of men and women) are represented. Following examination of the exposed female body in various situations and forms of representation within this exhibition, this room aims to expand dialogue into the issue of the covered body, referring to the bodily gaze as a means of obliterating or enhancing perception of the female form.
The first two paintings are just one example of the development of ideas throughout the 19th to 20th centuries, addressing modes of female representation and gender issues. The excessive drapery typical of Victorian clothing within the painting by Augustus Egg reflects the very conservative ideas of bodily exposure during the era and in generations preceding it. Within Fini’s later reworking of The Travelling Companions the repressed sexuality of the excessively clothed bodies are somewhat revealed, yet Fini also takes her interpretation further by using the resolution of opposites, such as the sleeping / waking dichotomy typical of surrealist painting and the opposites of covered / exposed, to address alternative forms of androgyny.
The significance of clothing within the representation of female form has also been widely explored within feminist film theory, hence the decision to show Josef Von Sternberg’s film ‘The Devil Is A Woman’ (1935). Covering the body in the form of costume, and often in particular with veils, within sexually charged scenes and mixed gender meetings, as opposed to radically exposing it, highlights the attention which must be paid to the manipulation of the gaze and representations of sex through the veiling of the body and the masquerade which surrounds it.
In particular the relation which the covered/ exposed body has to power and threat must also be called into consideration; ‘Women covered or uncovered are still trapped in the contradictions of a law which confines them because the culture of men sees dangers all over their bodies if they escape confinement.’ (Veils Masks and Mirrors, Griselda Pollock, Correct Distance, Cornerhouse,1990)
Within the collection of photographs ‘ Women of Allah’ Shirin Neshat is perhaps raising the question of whether the chador can be used as a weapon to deflect the colonialist gaze ( a gaze which wants to know everything and understands very little). The covered body is hence subject to the notion of a radical denial of the gaze and the concomitant strategy of absence. It can be said that the veil is represented as a power to obliterate the gaze (either a gendered or a cultural one) and as a protecting curtain of the innate power existing beneath it.
The second television monitor within this room would show documentation of the performance ‘In Mourning and in Rage’ created by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz in reaction to the female rape victims of Los Angeles in the 70s. The use of veiling within a form of protest inevitably relates to the traditions of mourning and the idea of power existing within, yet has also been used as a uniform ritual enabling the women to come together as a collective statement of unity and aggressive action. The use of veils also enabled the artists to challenge common representations of women as the victim or potential victim within advertising, news and entertainment media, creating a uniform representation of the female form as powerful and somewhat threatening.
Laurie Anderson’s photo narrative installation ‘Fully Automated Nikon’ documents her process of photographing men whom made comments to her in the street. By capturing their image and then obliterating their gaze within the resulting image she is somewhat creating an alternative representation of the covered female. Her work highlights the place that the gaze has within the obliteration or enhancement of representation of the female form, and places an emphasis upon the dominance that the male observer has within ‘visions of sex’.
Visions of Sex Presentation: The Covered Body-Research.
In Mourning and In Rage.....
A memorial event staged for mass media coverage on Tuesday 13th December 1977, Los Angeles. The event was created by artsist Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz-Starus in collaboration with Bia Lowe, women from the Woman's Building, Women Aagainst Viloence Against Women. Los Angeles Commissions on Assaults Against Women, and City Council woman Pat Russel.
The use of veiling within a form of protest inevitably relates to the traditions of mourning and to the idea of power exisiting within, yet has also been used as a uniform ritual enabling the women to come together as a collective statement of unity and aggressive action. The use of veils also enabled the artists to challenge common representations of the women as victim or potential victim within advertising, news and entertainment media, creating a uniform representation of the female form as powerful and somewhat threatening.
-analised through the reading of ' In Mourning and in Rage..., Frontiers: A Journal of Woman Studies, Vol 3,No 1 (Spring 1978) pp52-55.
Visions of Sex Presentation: The Covered Body- Research
'Correct Distance'- Mitra Tabrizian.
Correct Distance is a book of photographs by Iranian Artist (living in London) Mitra Tabrizian- but it is also considered a book about photographs and the politics of representation. Mitra Tabrizian develops ideas theoretically informed by Marxism, structuralism and pyschoanalysis ( those explored by Laura Mulvey on Film and Griselda Pollock on Painting) from the perspective of sexual and cultural difference within the medium of photography.
' Correct Distance offers a map of the ways in which the debate on sexual difference and photgraphic practice developed during the eighties. It is through this broader feminist porject, with its emphasis on the sexual politics of representation and the questions os desire and pleasure, that the work should be read' (Feminist Review, Roberta McGrath)
Notes from 'Veils, Masks and Mirrors, Griselda Pollock, Correct Distance (Cornerhouse 1990):
'I was struck by the unexpected force of a single figure, a veiled woman, covered from head to foot by her dark robe from which only a diamond shaped segment of her face escaped. She looks directly at us, framed off centre within the architectural geometry of a public building....This is neither a posed portrait of a politician, or the casual news shot of a political figure in her place of work - but a carefuly achieved effect in which the woman in present and concealed, protected from our gaze and looking straight at us. Does the veil disembody her and resit the fetishism typical of western representation of the female body, which Islam claims to honour by veiling? Or does it entice and confirm the mystery of what is hidden?'
'The enveloped figure is also a version of the masquerade of femininity- bearing a striking visual resemblance to Mrs Gorji. This time Mildred Pierce is a fictional character caught in that public world with a version of the veil- a feminine dress which conceals the seductive body the daughter flaunts before us but which heightens its threat. Women covered or uncovered are still trapped in the contradictions of a law which confines them because the culture of men sees dangers all over their bodies if ever they escape confinement' ( Riviere, quoted by Griselda Pollock in Veils, Masks and Mirrors)
'masculinity is identified with the pleasure of active looking and possession in fantasy by means of that gaze while femininity has become synonymous with exhibitionism- being looked at and being styled to attract and recieve the gaze. The look- or who looks- has thus become a means to discuss a formation of power, by means of the way looking and its regulation translates into visual codes both a social and a psychic organisation of sexual difference.'
'Women looking signifies danger and the castrating power of the femme fatale in horror films and film noir. Mitra Tabrizian seems to create the look as both aggressive, challenging and resistant.'
The complex layering of meaning, posititioning of characters and multidirectional nature of the gaze within Mitra Tabrizian's work plays a crucial part in questioning the masquerade in which our identities and sexualities and constructed and held.
'The game is not to strip away the veil and expose the truth- the lie of documentary photography and bourgeois realism. It is to know what masks we wear, to define the texts we perform and to accept the necessity for critical knowledge as the condition for new pleasures, a 'new langauge of desire.'
Visions of Sex Presentation: The Covered Body-Research.
Shirin Neshat - 'Women of Allah'
'feminist criticism of the chador and of what it symbolises- the severe repression of women, must not be seen in the context of Western Orientalism. The image of the veiled Muslim woman has long served as a metaphor for the national body. She is an enigma, whose unveiling symbolically justified the colonialist transgression.' (Shirin Neshat, published by the Serpentine Gallery, 2000)
'Women of Allah' raises the question of whether the chador can be used as a weapon to deflect the colonialist gaze.
'the notion of a radical denial of the gaze and the concomitant strategy of absence is extremely productive'
- use of metaphor and complex layers of meaning within her work is itself to be seen as a veil that falls across the picture.
Perhaps the point is to render visible the existence of a culture without simultaneously subjecting it to the mercy of the all-incorporating western gaze that wants to know everything and understands nothing.
The veil is used as a power to obliterate the gaze (either a gendered or cultural gaze) and as a protecting curtain of the innnate power existing beneath it.
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