Marlo Pascual Untitled 2012

This leaning sculpture consists of an enlarged headshot of the 1970s actress Hayley Mills. The upper half of her face is ripped away, eliciting a visceral effect while recalling the cliché of the melodramatically torn portrait. The work resonates with important concepts in feminist theory revolving around the issue of the male gaze. In this body of thought, the imbalance of power in society between men and women is evidenced by the predominance of images in which the viewer’s perspective is assumed to be that of a heterosexual male. By removing the figure’s eyes, Pascual denies the return gaze, which in certain feminist discourses serves to validate and enable the male observer’s dominance over the female subject that he is scrutinizing.
Identification
Title
Untitled
Production Date
2012
Object Number
2012.128
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by PAMM’s Collectors Council
Copyright
© Marlo Pascual
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Physical Qualities
Medium
Digital chromogenic print, face-mounted to acrylic
Dimensions
38 x 58 x 2 inches
Visual Description
Untitled by Marlo Pascual is a digital chromogenic print face-mounted to acrylic. It measures roughly three feet tall by a little more than four and three quarters feet wide. It is hung in in landscape orientation, meaning its longest side runs parallel to the ground. The photograph is printed in color and depicts the bottom half of a portrait of a person.  The background is solid black. In front of this solid background there is a person posing for the camera. The figure rests their chin on the closed fist of their left hand. On their wrist they are wearing a small gold watch with a thin black strap. Their skin is white and their lips are painted a light red. The figure’s shoulders are inclined. The shoulder on the viewer’s left is higher than the shoulder on the right. The figure’s dark blonde hair rests on their shoulders. The figure is wearing an off-white button-up shirt with a repeating floral pattern, colored in pastel shades of yellow, blue, and pink.  The photograph stops abruptly just slightly above the figure’s lips with a tear mark running across the entire width of the photograph.
Marlo Pascual
Marlo Pascual — b. 1972, Nashville; d. 2020, Philadelphia
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