ORLAN, RECLAIMING the GAZE Cerise Joelle Myers a Thesis
BETWEEN THE FOLLY AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SEEING: ORLAN, RECLAIMING THE GAZE Cerise Joelle Myers A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2006 Committee: Andrew E. Hershberger, Advisor Allie Terry ii ABSTRACT Andrew E. Hershberger, Advisor The female body is ubiquitous throughout Western art history, in various stages of dress and undress, and more often than not displayed in such a way as to bring pleasure to a male viewer. This male gaze objectifies women, projects standards of beauty and femininity and negates an individual identity by replacing it with its own assumptions. Though there have been female subjects throughout art history, by both male and female artists, who through posture, facial expression, or even textual communication have expressed recognition of and resistance to this gaze, it is the French artist Orlan who has provided one of its most striking and effective critiques. In her best-known and most controversial series, The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, Orlan continued to explore themes present throughout her early performance and photographic work and evident in her subsequent Self Hybridations series, as, through plastic surgery, she appropriated the facial features of various Western art historical beauties. Orlan not only orchestrated the surgeries, designed the costumes and decorated the operating theater, but by undergoing only local, rather than general, anesthesia, was herself an active participant in the events, in the ambitious seventh surgery, entitled Omnipresence, even interacting with audience members around the world via live satellite feed.
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