A Photo Series: The Forfeiture of Vanity by Amelvis Villafane

A Photo Series: The Forfeiture of Vanity

    John Berger dissects the depiction of women in art from pieces created centuries ago and their correlation to the idea of “seeing” a woman now and how that reflects in contemporary art and media. In his analysis of the way we portray women we are looking at the ideas of what it means to objectify women but also manage to place the blame on women for their own ideas of what a woman is. The idea that in art in the past we glorified the naked woman and sexualized our ideal women, that being the white woman. Where they painted nude images of these women and somehow always managed to find a way to pay the image less about the sexualization men will do of women and push the idea of vanity onto women. Berger says “Vanity puts the mirror in your hands to put the blame on women.” This quote is the inspiration for most of the themes of all my works this past semester, where I am really thinking about what it means to think about one’s self in an attractive or desirable way, and how these images have affected women and the way they are treated today. Vanity being a feminine issue is a tale that has been pushed on women for too long, and each of these projects focuses on dismantling the traditional ideas of femininity, the self and perception of women.
    Taking inspiration from my former project, I use the photo series to express how I see myself inspired by Ana Mendieta. In the original project I print images in a layout that is storytelling in a straightforward way. Using brutal images similar to Ana Mendieta. This time around I wanted to use the same concept of a photo series that is very obviously telling a story but I wanted to focus less on the ideas of the physical toll vanity can take for women, but to express the mental and emotional toll vanity takes on women. Exaggeration of expression was something that felt imperative to include into this piece.
    The preparation process consisted of four key components: The obvious components include thinking about where I would take these images, what I would look like in these images, and what angles and images would I include in this image. The harder step was to think about why I am making these images and are the images reflecting on the why. I decided on just being myself and intentionally using the area where I already commonly take most of my photos anyway, especially the selfie posts I would make for social media. The space itself is perfect because all of the background is white space with a singular mirror on the wall and there is no other decor on the walls so aesthetically I never find it too busy. I also think the simplicity of the place makes it more focused on me as the subject. There are no distractions. I started to “get ready” for these images as I would if I were planning on going out, but didn’t really put too much effort into it because I wanted to completely mess up all of it anyway and give it a very worn, messy look. This is clear when looking at the images of smudge lip and eye makeup. I just wanted to look not only distraught but I wanted to be frustrated, numb, and tired most of all. Especially when I think about the strained relationship I have with femininity.
    It is clear that with the straightened hair and makeup routine, I do put some effort into my appearance but I also don’t really understand why I feel my most confident when I am covered in makeup. I also wore really baggy clothes which is hard to see because these are most shoulder up images. My relationship with feminine fashion is also something that I wanted to expose. I don't ever really like the idea of exposing too much skin, which is mainly because it comes with the sexualization I would rather not endure.
    The major differences this series has in comparison to all of the past projects is how I am addressing more than one issue I see in myself, while of course I am thinking about who I am in relationship to vanity but I am also thinking about all of these pressures connect to my mental health, my gender identity, my relationship with my culture and natural hair, and how I present myself. I start thinking about how Nicholas Mirzoeff talks about the realities of beauty. “Beauty has no practical purpose.” I start to think about why my relationship with the word beauty has been so strained for so long, and it starts to almost accept that the societal standard of beauty isn’t something I can resonate with and I start to repair this relationship with myself.

     “Shifting attention from the art object to the artist’s action further suggested that art existed in real space and real time.” A quote from the Khan Academy Performance Art Introduction. I started to think about what it meant for me to not look at the art, that being myself in this case, as an object and turning into something that I perform but also realistically exist in. Uncomfortability is all I really felt while taking these photos. Creating the most perfectly imperfect images was all that was in my mind, so there is obviously still this idea of how I present myself in these images and just being able to submit them despite having a strained relationship with the person in them was a push out of my usual comfort zone. Which is surprising considering how intense my images were for the initial photo series but my brain justified that as going into character and not reflecting myself.

References

Berger, J. (1990). Ways of seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series. Penguin Books.

Mirzoeff, N. (2016). How to see the world: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More. Basic Books.

Rose Lee Goldberg. Performance: Live art since the 60s, New York: Thames & Hudson, 1998, page 20.