SELF-CONSCIOUS BODY

2016 photo, paper

Mrs. Fajger, Andrea Dudás (MKE DLA) and Ágnes Éva Molnár (MOME DLA)

As we investigated the photocollection of the Academy, we realized that the collection consists only men-made photos. The models, the naked bodies are represented through their patriarchal eyes, therefore there is a difference between the female and male representation. The chosen photos, these female body depictions are the products of the male imagination: the woman appears as the subject of the male gaze, in static, often eroticised pose. In our work we created a point of view from which the woman lets herself to be seen; a woman, a visual artist has to stand in front of and behind the camera in order to avoid the traditional patriarchal viewpoint of fine art. The task is full with challenges as the patriarchal way of seeing the depictions of women are deeply soaked in our minds despite the fact that other contemporary female artists already devoted their art to this task (e.g. the photoseries in 1975-76 ‘NudeModel’ and the the performance with the same name in 1977 from Orshi Drozdik, as well as her ‘Individual Mythology from 1975-77) and their works have been affecting us. Our work of art is on the one hand a reflection on the expectations towards the notion of female body today. One of us, Mrs. Fajger, Andrea Dudás, in this case the model, does not want to live up neither to the trends of consumerism, nor to its female body ideals.On the other hand, our photos are conceptual reinterpretations, they bear the same stylistic features as the pieces of the photocollection made around the turn of the century: they pretend to be one of those images photographed for the Female Class of the Modeldrawing School. Our goal is to present the female body representation that became conscious of itself; the woman is not represented as a defenceless object of a certain (male) desire, but as an active agent of creation full of readiness.