In late June, a provocative exhibition opened at New York City's Museum of Sex.

NSFW: Female Gaze - the first collaboration between the Museum and Creators at VICE - celebrates expression and desire in the female gaze. Historically, as described in John Berger's 1972 book and BBC series Ways of Seeing, art consumers were men, and the objects on which they feasted were the women who graced canvases or were sculpted from marble. In 1975, film theorist Laura Mulvey produced the landmark essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which drew from Lacanian and Freudian psychoanalytic theory as a critical means by which to deconstruct the power structures around who is looking, who is looked at, and to what ends. Mulvey helped initiate a much-needed dialogue that surpassed its roots in film culture, one which today takes on renewed relevance as gender matters play out on social media platforms.

For NSFW, the all-woman artist roster works across a wide media and methodological landscape, exploring sexuality and positioning the act of women looking as a radical pursuit that resists social mores and gender expectations. I spoke with artist and Museum of Sex Associate Curator Lissa Rivera and Creators Editor-in-Chief Marina Garcia Vasquez about their curatorial approach, how "the gaze" is defined, and why an exhibition prioritizing women’s desires is critically important in this moment.

Interview by Roula Seikaly

Photo Courtesy of the Collection of Robert E. Jackson

The act of photographing someone from behind is often likened to voyeurism or timidity. Think Lee Friedlander's classic image of his shadow stuck to a fur-clad woman's back. Or the countless, anonymous, about-faced vernacular snapshots that shroud women in a creepy silhouette of men pursuing them with cameras. As a young teenager, one of my first photo teachers told me to avoid making this kind of portrait at all costs - their recommendation (or commandment!) was meant as an encouragement – to get to know people, explore something deeper, make a connection or challenge me to engage on a deeper level. But what can this sometimes frowned-upon approach disclose in gesture or body language? Can it tell us more than direct eye contact might pretend? Pace McGill curated a rather compelling exhibition of these kinds of portraits throughout photographic history last summer in NYC. Building on some of these historical notions, we contacted some of our favorite contemporary emerging and mid-career photographers to hear their about their own back-portraits, and their thoughts on this reversal of reveal.

Rethinking the Female Gaze: A Conversation with Lissa Rivera and Marina Garcia Vasquez

What Does it Mean To Photograph Someone from Behind?