Lynda Benglis SMILE 1974 Cast bronze 15 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches 39.4 x 16.5 x 5.7 centimeters IMAGE CREDIT:Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

Lynda Benglis, “Smile” (1974), cast bronze, 15 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 2 1/4 in (photo courtesy Cheim & Read, New York)

It’s an oh-so-good premise for an exhibition: exploring the female gaze. It has so much potential to open up areas of theorizing about how we look at each other as gendered beings and how else we might do that looking. So it feels disappointing that Cheim & Read has mostly squandered that potential in the exhibition The Female Gaze, Part Two: Women Look at Men.

Louise Bourgeois, "MALE FIGURE (2009) Gouache and colored pencil on paper 23 1/2 x 18 inches 59.7 x 45.7 centimeters IMAGE CREDIT: ©The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA, NY.

Louise Bourgeois, “Male Figure” (2009), gouache and colored pencil on paper, 23 1/2 x 18 in (photo © the Easton Foundation, licensed by VAGA, NY) (click to enlarge)

The foundation of the idea of the female gaze comes from an essay by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey discusses the male gaze, arguing that cinema in general is gendered, rooted in the patriarchal practice of taking on the perspective of a heterosexual male. One of the pernicious effects of this imbalance of power is that women are made into sexualized objects essentially existing for the pleasure of men — both for the male characters within the film and for the audience who views it. Like racism reduces people to the sign of their skin color, the male gaze reduces women to the sign of their sex.

The temptation in postulating the idea of a female gaze is to flip that coin, to embrace its opposite by reducing men to — yes, you’ve guessed it — the sign of a phallus. This concept doesn’t issue from Mulvey herself, but is rather the intellectually lax conceit taken up by the Cheim & Read show. In fact, other feminist theorists, such as Mary Ann Doane, have worked to show that “… the reversal itself remains locked within the same logic … [it] reinforces the dominant system of aligning sexual difference with a subject/object dichotomy.” In other words, there are other ways of looking at a woman or a man that do not diminish them as merely objects for visual pleasure or ridicule.

Nicole Wittenberg, "Red Handed, Again" (2014) Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Nicole Wittenberg, “Red Handed, Again” (2014), oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in (photo courtesy the artist)

The Female Gaze, Part Two explores those ways sparingly. The participants are mostly strong, prominent artists who have well-developed practices, but, thanks to curation that mostly focuses on the artistic equivalent of dick pics (and sculpture), the whole show feels plodding and uncomplicated. Phallic forms are rendered in sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, Lynda Benglis, and Sarah Lucas, while Marlene Dumas, Nicole Wittenberg, Celia Hempton, and Collier Schorr offer paintings and photographs focused on the penis. Some of them stand out by sheer visual force. Wittenberg’s “Red Handed, Again” (2014) is a riveting piece that features red arms and legs holding a long penis with white highlights; the rest of the body is slowly obliterated into a farrago of white paint flecked with red as the eye moves away from the phallus. It’s magnificently angry and sexual at the same time. Hempton’s “Ben” (2015) flips the script in an aggressive and impressive way: she makes a Caucasian man’s asshole the center of the composition, suggesting that the painter has reduced the body to an orifice for penetration.

Katy Grannan Anonymous, Modesto, CA (2014) Archival Pigment print on cotton rag paper mounted to Plexiglass 55 x 41 inches (Photo courtesy Salon 94, New York

Katy Grannan, “Anonymous, Modesto, CA” (2014), archival pigment print on cotton rag paper mounted to Plexiglass, 55 x 41 in (photo courtesy Salon 94, New York)

There are pieces in the show that offer more nuanced considerations of their subjects. Photographs by Katy Grannan, Catherine Opie, Diane Arbus, and Nan Goldin all show men who are vulnerable, dazed, attempting to be seductive but also shyly inattentive. These — as well as a painting by Sylvia Sleigh, “Paul Rosano in Jacobsen Chair” (1971), and one by Grace Graupe-Pillard, “Dillon: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (2016) — seem to be made with real affection for their subjects, the figuration infused with admiration. There are, truthfully, enough works like this in the show to let you come away with a sense of the female gaze as not being constituted in echoing the phallocentrism of our culture. But it’s difficult, because the penis shots are so leaden and so littered throughout the gallery as to weigh the entire ship down.

Sarah Lucas WHITE NOB 2013 Plaster 43 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 11 inches 110.5 x 31.8 x 27.9 centimeters IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy Gladstone Gallery

Sarah Lucas, “White Nob” (2013), plaster, 43 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 11 in (photo courtesy Gladstone Gallery) (click to enlarge)

The first iteration of this show took place in 2009, when Cheim & Read staged The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women. According to Cora Fisher, writing in the Brooklyn Rail, that show also succumbed to some basic and unexciting thinking about how women see themselves and other women, by prioritizing a conceptual framework that regards identity as produced by the intersection of body and politics. The lesson learned in both cases is that under-theorizing an exhibition can sap the potential from a brilliant premise that promises, but fails to deliver, a transformative conversation on gender.

The Female Gaze, Part Two: Women Look at Men continues at Cheim & Read (547 West 25th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through September 2.

Seph Rodney, PhD, is a former senior critic and Opinion Editor for Hyperallergic, and is now a regular contributor to it and the New York Times. In 2020, he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism prize and in...

7 replies on “Turning the Male Gaze on Its Head”

  1. Fucking brilliant! You nailed it; no other reviews of this show saw what you did. Bravo!

    (The show was curated by gay men. So…there you go).

    Again, brilliant.

    1. So the curation effort of one gay man is enough for you to make some kind of broad, sweeping statement?

      Man, talk about missing the point…

      1. Yes. I agree with the fact that men curating a show of “the female gaze” is a little amusing and problematic, but the fact that said men are gay is neither here nor there.

        1. No, it’s precisely the issue. The show sexualizes men in a way women actually don’t. It’s the (gay) male gaze dressed up as female gaze.

          1. Really. Funny, but as a gay male, I dont see other men that way, certainly not if the image shown here are any indication.

            But then I suppose that comes from your vast intimate knowledge of gay men, right?

          2. Not all men have a “male gaze” when painting women, but this show is male gaze turned up to 11. It’s a collection of work women have made when selectively put together becomes Tom of Finland.

            Did the curator have “vast intimate knowledge” of straight women? It’s beside the point.

      2. The broad statement was made in the curation, intentionally or not. The problem is most people aren’t bright enough to see it.

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