‘Four things to see’ is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, a free arts and culture platform that provides access to museums, galleries and cultural spaces around the world on demand. Explore now.
Each week we bring you four of the most interesting objects from the world’s museums, galleries and art institutions, hand-picked to mark significant moments in the calendar.
On 11 October 1965, Dorothea Lange, the documentary photographer who captured the suffering and resilience of Americans during the Great Depression, died at the age of 70. Lange’s legacy extends far beyond individual images: she questioned who holds the power to look and who gets looked at, making clearer than ever that photography is capable of both empowerment and exploitation. Her work raised questions about photographers’ responsibility and subjects’ agency that are still debated today.
The concept of ‘the gaze’ has become central to contemporary art criticism, and denotes far more than the act of observation. It concerns power dynamics between viewer and viewed, the politics of representation and the complex relationship between artist, subject and audience. From Orientalist fantasies that reduce cultures to ‘exotic’ spectacle, to subversive works that challenge long-held perspectives, art has long made us consider the ethical implications of looking. This week we examine four works that illuminate different aspects of the gaze, each revealing how the act of seeing is never neutral but always charged with desire and power.
La danse de l’Almée (19th century), Félix Ziem
Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Nice
Ziem’s sensuous depiction of a dancing almeh is a textbook example of Orientalist fantasy. The painter offers a stolen glimpse into a world usually hidden from men, as well as the architectural splendour of Constantinople. This romanticised vision obscures reality: almehs were in reality sophisticated entertainers, healers and teachers, respected for their intellectual as well as physical abilities. Ziem’s painting reveals more about European fantasies of ‘the East’ than about its actual inhabitants, demonstrating how certain gazes can reduce complex cultures to consumable spectacle. Click here to find out more via Bloomberg Connects.
Portrait (Futago) (1988), Yasumasa Morimura
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Morimura’s provocative recreation of Manet’s Olympia creates a hall of mirrors that challenges our assumptions about artistic authority and cultural ownership. By inserting his own body into this canonical Western masterpiece – itself influenced by the flat perspective of Japanese ukiyo-e – the artist exposes the circular nature of cultural appropriation while subverting the gender and racial hierarchies embedded in Manet’s painting. The work forces viewers to confront their own expectations and biases, making the artwork’s primary subject the act of looking itself. Click here to find out more.
In the Loge (1878), Mary Cassatt
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
As one of only three women in the Impressionists’ inner circle along with Berthe Morisot and Marie Bracquemond, Cassatt brought an unusual perspective to the group’s favoured subject of spectatorship. Here she presents a woman who actively participates in the ‘game of gazes’ rather than serving as passive spectacle. The foregrounded figure looks on with confident directness while a male observer lurks in the background, his gaze registering as secondary to hers. Cassatt’s bold composition is an elegant example of how women artists could subtly challenge patriarchal conventions of looking. Click here to discover more.
Patient Admission, US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam (2010), from the Events Ashore series (2005–14) by An-My Lê
Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Lê’s photograph captures a moment of cultural encounter aboard the USS Mercy, where a Buddhist monk and a US naval officer sit on either side of a steel column that seems to represent the barrier between their worlds. Both subjects appear acutely conscious of the camera’s presence, which lends the image its tension. The artist’s Vietnamese heritage adds nuance to this scene of American military presence in Southeast Asia, creating a work that makes us consider how cultural difference might be represented without reproducing certain power dynamics. Click here to learn more.
‘Four things to see’ is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, a free arts and culture platform that provides access to museums, galleries and cultural spaces around the world on demand. Explore now.
