Offsetting the ‘Violence’ of the Male Gaze through the Box-Assemblage

Abstrakt

The purpose of the article and my
purpose as an artist is to demonstrate how my
box-assemblage succeeds in countervailing
the ‘violence’ of the male gaze through its
sanctuaried design and Idoia’s simulacra, relics
and memorabilia that make up its fabric.
While acknowledging that Idoia embodies my
unattainable other, I have come to the point
where I have no qualms in equating her with
the transcendental. To this effect, the box-assemblage
fuses the sacred and the profane,
and subjects Idoia’s raw sexuality to a process
of transubstantiation whereby the ordinary
yearns for the extraordinary. Furthermore,
by having her body eroticised and fetishised
through fragmentation, a process construed
as violent in nature, the artefact roots within
itself the notions of Eros and Thanatos. With such attributes, the box-assemblage not only empowers this woman to display herself on her own terms, but questions and disrupts the violent spectatorship and dominance of the male gaze.

Keywords: female body, Eros and
Thanatos, fetish, fragmentation, male gaze,
mise-en-abyme, violence