Betwixted, 2023
Ana Aleksić
Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.
That is how art critic John Berger described in his Ways of Seeing the presentation of women throughout the entire history of art and how that tradition continued in film, photography, advertising, and comics. Women have always been seen as objects, and men are those who look at them. Postmodernism has led to the destruction of all forms of representation in the visual arts, including the representation of women.
Archival traditions, functions, and practices were also brought into question, as well as the role of the author in creating a truly original work of art. Archival traditions, functions, and practices were also brought into question, as well as the role of the author in creating a truly original work of art. Archives are no longer a place where photographs are stored. They are not just in museums but all around us. As for the author, Roland Barthes declared him dead a long time ago in favor of the observer or reader.
Everything stated above forms the basis of the work of Ana Aleksic, who deconstructed the type of photography in which women are mostly depicted as passive sexual objects for the enjoyment of the male gaze. The negatives the artist used were found at the flea market. These are photographs from the 1970s and 1980s pornographic magazines. That’s where the story becomes complicated and, at the same time, confirms the nature of the photographic image and the treatment of the woman as a fetish. These are not originals but negatives of rephotographed images from magazines made for private use.
Apart from the original author (or several that took photographs for these magazines), there was another one, and, in the end, the artist herself stepped in and made collages by overlapping the two negatives or positives. All of them were taken again and then digitally converted to positive images (if negatives). Negative is the opposite of positive. What appears as light in a negative is seen as dark in a positive, and vice versa. What a negative hides, a positive reveals. In this interspace, the artist creates a new image that has nothing to do with the reason the photographs were originally created.
The male gaze, which is the basis for the entire history of the presentation, is extinguished. The image can be a portrait of a woman, emphasizing her face and internal characteristics. In certain works, it can represent an act in the way artist looks at it or something else. Indeed, this image isn’t fixed. It seems like it’s slipping away with each new observation because there are always
Some further details in the form of shadows, lines, outlines, and damage. The transformation process does not end with the negatives but with a book printed on a risograph, giving photographs a grainy texture.
Betwixted is a very strange yet very powerful word with many layers. It is not entirely a word, yet it describes everything these works and the book represent. Betwixt literally means between while the suffix -ed refers to manipulation. Between two negatives and positives, between analog and digital. Between multiple meanings of an image. Finally, between the male gaze (the original photographer), who strived for perfection for the sake of fantasy and enjoyment, and the female gaze — the artist who erased his with manipulation.
Text by Jelena Matić
Measures: 27 X 18,5 cm
Pages: 168
Technique: In-house Riso Printed on 120gsm Offset Paper, Hand Screen Printed Covers on Silver 240gsm Paper, Open spine
Edition: 180
Published by Varikina Studio
Ana Aleksić
Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.
That is how art critic John Berger described in his Ways of Seeing the presentation of women throughout the entire history of art and how that tradition continued in film, photography, advertising, and comics. Women have always been seen as objects, and men are those who look at them. Postmodernism has led to the destruction of all forms of representation in the visual arts, including the representation of women.
Archival traditions, functions, and practices were also brought into question, as well as the role of the author in creating a truly original work of art. Archival traditions, functions, and practices were also brought into question, as well as the role of the author in creating a truly original work of art. Archives are no longer a place where photographs are stored. They are not just in museums but all around us. As for the author, Roland Barthes declared him dead a long time ago in favor of the observer or reader.
Everything stated above forms the basis of the work of Ana Aleksic, who deconstructed the type of photography in which women are mostly depicted as passive sexual objects for the enjoyment of the male gaze. The negatives the artist used were found at the flea market. These are photographs from the 1970s and 1980s pornographic magazines. That’s where the story becomes complicated and, at the same time, confirms the nature of the photographic image and the treatment of the woman as a fetish. These are not originals but negatives of rephotographed images from magazines made for private use.
Apart from the original author (or several that took photographs for these magazines), there was another one, and, in the end, the artist herself stepped in and made collages by overlapping the two negatives or positives. All of them were taken again and then digitally converted to positive images (if negatives). Negative is the opposite of positive. What appears as light in a negative is seen as dark in a positive, and vice versa. What a negative hides, a positive reveals. In this interspace, the artist creates a new image that has nothing to do with the reason the photographs were originally created.
The male gaze, which is the basis for the entire history of the presentation, is extinguished. The image can be a portrait of a woman, emphasizing her face and internal characteristics. In certain works, it can represent an act in the way artist looks at it or something else. Indeed, this image isn’t fixed. It seems like it’s slipping away with each new observation because there are always
Some further details in the form of shadows, lines, outlines, and damage. The transformation process does not end with the negatives but with a book printed on a risograph, giving photographs a grainy texture.
Betwixted is a very strange yet very powerful word with many layers. It is not entirely a word, yet it describes everything these works and the book represent. Betwixt literally means between while the suffix -ed refers to manipulation. Between two negatives and positives, between analog and digital. Between multiple meanings of an image. Finally, between the male gaze (the original photographer), who strived for perfection for the sake of fantasy and enjoyment, and the female gaze — the artist who erased his with manipulation.
Text by Jelena Matić
Measures: 27 X 18,5 cm
Pages: 168
Technique: In-house Riso Printed on 120gsm Offset Paper, Hand Screen Printed Covers on Silver 240gsm Paper, Open spine
Edition: 180
Published by Varikina Studio