Zanele Muholi
Miss D’vine II
2007
2007
Observation:
The image is a color photograph. There is a woman standing in the right-center of the frame. From a photographers perspective this could be considered implementation of the rule of thirds, by not placing the image directly in the center. The woman is wearing a shorter dress which appears blue and green on the bottom half. The top half is much more intricate and looks almost like lace, however it is difficult to tell with such a dark dress. She is not wearing and jewelry. Her high-heeled shoes are bright orange-red color and they really stand out in comparison to the rest of her outfit. The woman's hands pull her dress out to both sides almost like she is about to curtsy. Her legs are covered in some sort of reddish liquid, perhaps blood? It is mostly on her shins and part of her upper left thigh. Her expression reflects sadness or some sort of discontent. As if she is embarrassed.The sunlight in this picture does not emulate her face, but instead highlights her body, especially her collar-bone area. The background to this area is very dry. The land is a blondish color with tall reed-looking plants or perhaps dried out tall grass directly behind. It reaches to about the top of her thighs. The ground is littered with all sorts of debris or trash. The sky, however, is a bright and light blue, complementing the tall grass.
Inference:
Zanele Muholi's photography is eye-opening and to be completely honest I probably wouldn't have looked into her or the subject matter had I not been assigned it. Muholi is from South Africa, a black woman and a lesbian. She primarily speaks about the idea of women who were raped and portrayed as criminals as much as they were survivors. It was almost as if rape could cure their sexual orientation and change their mind-set to live the stereotypical life of an African woman. She states, "Curative rapes, as they are called, are perpetrated against us in order to make us in 'real' and 'true' African women--appropriately feminine, mothers, men's property" (Thomas 46). As for the red liquid by research led me to believe it to be blood because of the brutality these women faced while struggling to survive within their grotesque and static society.
Most of her photographs feature women who have stereotypical characteristics of men. They are not smiling, nor do they dress in elaborate clothing and jewelry. I intentionally chose this image because it displays the "ideal woman". She is dressed in a pretty blue dressed and forced to wear high heels, which look a bit uncomfortable judging by her face in the picture. The whole image seems a bit disturbing. The image looks very contrived and I believe Muholi wants the viewers to see that these material items do not define or fix lesbian women, it only masks them further. Muholi also tries to portray that, "--her current photographs lies in how they both lay bare and contest the ways in which the lives of queer subjects are made invisible and their deaths ungrievable" (Thomas 36). A dress does not change anything, the material merely hangs on her body. It looks out of place with the background because it is a very intricate design, while the sky and land are bare and naked. Nothing about her is naked, not even her identity. It does not belong to her. The woman the may have once been there no longer exists. She is invisible as Muholi often claims about the women in her photographs. There is no mourning her death because she does not exist as who she once was. I know that Muholi did photograph lesbian women who did actually die from Aids or violence, but I view this photograph also in a metaphorical sense. The sense, like our reading on Alergian Unveiled, that they identity is compromised. These African lesbians are not accepted or fairly represented because people fear they will might find their inner "queer-ness"in viewing these photographs, "Seeing Muhl's photographs is premised on the exchange of queer looks and recognizing the desire to acknowledge the queerness inside ourselves" (Thomas 42).
My observation that the woman is curtsying is a demonstration of male dominance over women's power and gender roles. Women should be subordinate.
Yinka Shonibare
Scramble for Africa
Observation:
The above picture features thirteen mannequins sitting around an old wooden table. On the table there is a map of what looks like Africa and by the caption I think it is safe to assume that I am correct. The mannequins look as if they are pointing at each other and the map and debating or expressing something.Some have their arms spread out, others have them resting on the table and some even have their arms crossed. Each is missing their head. The skin tone on the mannequins is a tan color, but definitely falls more on the white side of the spectrum. Each mannequin wears a very fancy jacket and no two look exactly the same. The colors are vibrant and the patterns are exotic looking. The rest of the room is very dull. The floor is a grey color and the walls are white and bare, especially in comparison to those jackets. The most common color amongst them is green. The chairs they are sitting in look old-fashioned.
Inference:
This picture is a clear representation of the European scramble for Africa. What stands out most is that each of the thirteen bodies around the table have had their heads removed. This seems to be representative of how the colonizing Europeans viewed the inhabitants of the African territory they were recklessly dividing up month themselves. As Yinka Shonibare mentions on page 163, the Europeans saw "some kind of dichotomy between Africa and Europe- between the 'exotic other' and the 'civilized European'". The headless mannequins show the European's "symbolic beheading of power" for their subjects (Shonibare 164).
An interesting facet of this representation is the patterned garments that adorn the figures sitting around the table. Because this picture is a representation of an event in Africa's history, one might assume that the clothing is similar to traditional garments, but in reality it is a dutch style. It's easy to forget that just because Shonibare is of african descent, he did not grow up in that culture. He even states, "I've never been to an African village, so the idea that i would have some connection to traditional art is quite absurd"(Shonibare, 167). Everything he knows about african culture and history comes from education outside of Africa, but one of the reasons he focuses his work on being black is cultural expectations. "If I made work about being black, I would be considered simply an artist who makes work about blackness; if I did not make work about being black, people speak of me as a black artist who did not make work about my blackness" (Shonibare 167). This is a difficult predicament for him to be in, and it explains come of the inconsistant aspects within his work, such as the Dutch patterns that the African subjects are wearing.
Lalla Essaydi
(not sure why it's so small and unclear, but just incase I provided the hyperlink to a bigger image)
http://431vxo2hhe1v2vmpub2npg35.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Lalla2.jpg (copy into URL)
Observation:
The image is broken up into thirds and each image is outlined with a thick black border that is not perfectly lining the edges. The image farthest to the left features the woman's legs and feet from the knee down. Her feet are completely bare. The middle image is her torso and her arm from just above the elbow to her hand. The image farthest to the right is spans from just below her breast to the very top of her head with her hair dangling to the floor. The image in it's entirety is intriguing. The woman is laying on a bed or a mattress. The sheets and blanket are covered in a gold, white and black pattern. The gold part resembles clusters of beads and the object above the white "mattress" looks like sequins or something shimmering. The woman is wearing an outfit that is a cream color with brown undertones. Her belt is very thick and completely gold, like the object below her. The same material is used in a cuff like sense around her ankles. She wears jewelry on her neck and wrists. Her skin is covered in some sort of script from head to toe. Her expression looks like some sort of discontent or maybe a tired expression. The background in all three images is the same. It features brown and dark gold squares, while the space between is filled with rows and columns of gold disk looking objects.
Inference:
Essaydi focuses much of her photography on gender roles and the Islamic culture, like Shonibare, she feels that her work sometimes contradicts itself. Most of her inspiration comes from writers and Orientalist paintings. The image, like our other works, depicts misconceptions with identity and the way the public views a photograph, a gender, and a culture. Essaydi states,
I
am very much interested in a way of becoming a bridge, because I want to make
it known that Orientalist paintings are just Western male fascination and a
fantasy. I want people to understand that. I’m not laying blame on anyone, but
I want people to acquire a different kind of seeing. I want them to synthesize
themselves with these situations where women are portrayed so they would start
seeing other things than sexual exploitation (Cheers par. 12).
The position of the females body in his image is very telling of Essaydi's concept of a bridge. The female is laying in a horizontal position with her body "as straight as a board". She is the entryway into looking at world a little differently, especially regarding gender. I find that the picture is segmented so that it forces the viewer to take on a different perspective. Essaydi seems to want us as the viewer to break down her images not from a sensual standpoint, but through a spiritual (faith) lens, a gender lens and a cultural lens. The viewer cannot take the image as just one whole concept.
The Arabic letters featured in most of her pieces are intriguing. Aside from her love of text and writing, Essaydi has thoughts on beauty as well. She claims, “In Orientalism, ‘beauty is quite dangerous, as it lures the viewer into accepting the fantasy" (Brown par. 9) Yet, I find that these words written on this woman's skin almost brand her like a tattoo. These words define who she is without her consent. She wears her culture like a second skin. The writing on her skin actually reminds me of a quote I once heard regarding beauty. "If the words you spoke appeared on your skin would you still feel beautiful?". Now as previously stated Essaydi's believes her work is contradictory and I find that it makes the viewers perception contradictory, not necessarily the intent of the photographer. The words her culture and others define her as in correlation with society's perception contradict each other. Society restricts the public than seeing her work as more than a fantasy, but if she literally wore those words like a second she may not necessarily meet those stereotypes anymore.
Work Cited:
Brown, DeNeen. "Artist Lalla Essaydi Challenges
Stereotypes of Women in Islamic Cultures." Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 5 May 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.
Cheers, Imani. "Q&A: Lalla Essaydi Challenges
Muslim, Gender Stereotypes at Museum of African Art." PBS. PBS, 9 May
2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.
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