“Men dream of women. Women dream that someone else dreams of them. Men look at women. Women watch others look at them. They constantly see gazes that work like mirrors, reminding them of how they look. – or what they should look like, “with these words, in 1972, British art critic John Berger began male gaze or research into the “male gaze” problem. A few years later, film theorist Lora Malveja defined that “The role of a woman in a patriarchal society is to be a symbol of a man’s perception, to exist as an object through which a man can live out his fantasies and obsessions. [..], emphasizing the silent image of the woman whose role is to express meaning rather than to create it. “
This perspective continues to resonate fifty years later, and Mikēlis Mūrnieks’ exhibition confirms this, putting not only the spectator in a strange situation, but first of all the artist himself. The series of works features twelve beautiful, naked women, twelve iconic apostles, arranged specifically in the sacred geometry of space. Do Mason’s works embody the core of the “man’s gaze” problem? Do they allow you to look at it from a new perspective? Several of the works in the exhibition refer to images of ancient and Christian culture – Titian Venus, the three goddesses of beauty and the symbols of Christianity – which are imbued with the dark gravity of patriarchalism. How to look at abstract acts through the prism of feminism? Is a male artist at all able to point to a woman’s beauty without making it an object? And what constructs the look of this exhibition?
The creation of the series of works was motivated by the desire to revise the ideals of aesthetics, and this led to the chronically shameless revelation characteristic of Mūrnieks: a woman’s naked body is the highest peak of beauty in his eyes. The pursuit of aesthetic pleasure is reflected in the visual language of the work, which is stylistically similar Art Deco decorative elegance; In terms of form, the series has been strongly influenced by the Art Nouveau style of the French architect Ektor Gimar, writes Henrik Elias Zegner.
By ticking the layers of the exhibition, a symbolic, nuanced resistance to the illustrative, objectifying view of the man is gradually revealed – it is embodied in the visual abstraction of the works and the conflict between the materials used. Polyurethane foam penetrates through the scrupulously formed metal forms and latex – the mason’s author’s technique has left wounds, scars and stretch marks in the polished parts of the body.
However, the very core of resistance, embarrassment and experience is in the title work in the center of the exhibition – a construction that forms a counterweight to the beauty of Mūrnieks’ theory of visual enjoyment – conceptually, literally and physically. Perhaps the opposite pole of admiration for beauty is formed by the still-present chauvinism or sense of one’s sins? Maybe these questions are heavier than innocent pleasure? In any case, it seems important to start a negotiation on this. Even if afraid that the path of thought threatens to expand into an appropriation.
Berger points out that nudity in European paintings originally appeared through the story of Adam and Eve. In the Old Testament, the serpent tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, saying, “You shall not die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like Gods, knowing good and evil.” Eve bites the apple, gives it to Adam, and then “their two eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made aprons for themselves.” Nudity became sinful when it was seen.
Miķelis Mūrnieks’ works continue to provoke with the density of symbols – the silent characters do not look into the observer’s eyes, but make their author naked, turning the spotlight on the eyes of social criticism against him. Viewers are captured only by its reflection and cast shadows – in a room where the nakedness of the body confuses again. Somewhere between innocent time in paradise, pleasure and falling into sin.
Henrik Elias Zegner
Solo exhibition of the artist Miķelis Mūrnieks Visual Pleasure Theory cultural sites You already know where The small hall on Tallinas Street 10-K3 will be open until June 5.
–
