What is the ‘female gaze?’According to this show, it’s a category as wide-ranging as it sounds, running the gamut from riotous to reserved, racy to prim.In forty-one paintings, photographs and sculptures of female subjects by female artists, we’re repeated faced women demurely averting their eyes, but also find ourselves the objects of scrutiny by stony-faced characters.
In the front gallery, Diane Arbus and Julia Margaret Cameron promote voyeurism through their choice of subject matter.The former offers up a delectable young blond; Cameron, on the other hand, presents the quintessential ‘still waters run deep’ romantic type.Cindy Sherman skillfully mimics the slightly dopey Cameron look in her self-portrait, making her wistful character appear bland.
A graphic sex scene by Joan Semmel, rendered in lurid purples and pinks, is joined by a soft focus Lisa Yuskavage playmate and a coupling couple by Louise Bourgeois –all boisterously embodying the main gallery’s theme of pleasure in looking and being looked at.Pleasure meets pain in sexually derogatory texts presented by Jenny Holzer and Marina Abramovic’s self-abuse by hairbrush.The variety of approaches in this smart show, ripe with formal and conceptual connections, reinforce the idea that there’s no such thing as detached viewing.