filamentosmovimentos

Sally Mann "Proud Flesh"


"In her artist's statement for the exhibition "Proud Flesh" the photographer Sally Mann identifies herself as a "woman who looks". Photographing her husband of forty years, "let(ting) the sunshine fall voluptuously on a still beautiful form", the two of them "still in love, still at work", she is aware of the risk she is taking. 
Within traditional narratives, women who look, especially women who look unflinchingly at men, have been punished: Take poor Psyche, punished for all time for daring to lift the lantern to finally see her lover... The act of looking appraisingly at a man, making eye contact on the street, asking to photograph  him, studying his body, has always been a brazen venture for a woman, though for a man these acts are commonplace, even expected."
(...)
"It's true that the mythical Psyche was punished for breaking Eros's injunction against her seeing him or speaking about her love. When she lifted the lantern, she was planning to kill him, having been told by her sisters that he was a monster. What stilled her hand was his beauty, and also his humanness, his vulnerability."



Carol Gillighan in "Joining the resistance"