The Gaze By Tanja Ostojiac

When discussing art in terms of ‘visual culture’, it is important to remember The Gaze and the effect that it has not only in the art world, but in our day to day lives. The Gaze is a common term amongst the visual community Going mostly unnoticed, it is important to remember that we live in a society where every interaction exists in the frame of a power structure. We could say the same of artwork: it exists in the power structure that the artist has created; how we perceive an image is ultimately decided by them. The main focus of this essay will be a discussion of the piece ‘Untitled’ by Tanja Ostojic (2004). The direct argument of this essay is that the artist controls the power. It will incorporate visual theory on the ‘Gaze’ alongside
If the male Gaze is to objectify, wouldn’t it be redirected to the next sexual organ of desire? “The act of looking is commonly thought of as awarding more power to the person who is looking than to the person who is the object of the look.” (Sturken, Cartwright, p100, 2000). In the case of viewers of ‘Untitled’, this may very well be true, without sufficient background knowledge, the ‘untrained eye’ may not even realise it’s a piece of art. However, the framing, colour selection, and release year of the piece all indicate that there is something more to the picture than initially thought. When looking at the picture, the eye is immediately drawn to the contrasting blue and yellow centrepiece. This is intentional from Ostojic as she is deliberately diverting our Gaze towards her message. Ostojic is in full control here as she makes the viewer see what she wants them to see and successfully conveys her message by doing
Michel Faucault, a French postmodernist was hugely influential in this field and cemented ideas for thinking about the relation of images and power. “Power relations, he argued, establish the criteria for what gets to count as knowledge in a given society, and knowledge systems in turn produce power relations.” (Sturken, Cartwright, p97, 2000). In ‘Untitled’, Tanja teaches us about the struggles of Eastern European women in terms of migration by giving us knowledge through her art. This power relation between the viewer and artist again represents why the artist controls the power. It’s almost as if we are the student to teachers who subsequently make us think, observe, and learn through their