ARTICLE: “Ways of Seeing” in Contemporary Lynx
Barbara Hammer, Big Eye (1980)
Barbara Hammer’s photograph, Big Eye (1980) was recently featured in a review of “Ways of Seeing” at Muzeum Sztuki in Contemporary Lynx!
“Feminist artists often speak out critically against visual stereotypes. Barbara Hammer’s photograph Big Eye (1980) analyses the relationship between the gaze and the body, asking whether ‘female gaze’ – a gaze free from objectification – is possible. Hammer points out that the act of looking is gendered and that female experience is often marginalised. The eye looks at us, the photographer seems to be reflected in the pupil, and she is the object of this gaze, regaining power over how she wants to be perceived. The woman gains control over her representation and, by dethroning the male viewer, reverses the patriarchal order – she is not an object to be viewed, but the creator of the image and an active observer.”