Lily Wong

The piece that most intrigued me was the diptych of a young woman in the Accumulations gallery, created by Rineke Dijkstra. Getting home, the first thing I did was look up diptych, which is in short, a work made up of two matching parts. In this piece are two C-prints, portraits with female subjects. At first glance, I thought there were two different women photographed in this work, that they merely represented civilian versus military life. In actuality, this diptych features only one woman. The left portrait was taken the day she was inducted into the Israeli army. In it, she posed off to the side; head tilted, hair styled, and light makeup done. On the right though, her hair is put up and it still looks well kept, her eye makeup seems a bit heavier, with more liner and she is sporting a healthier glow/tan, most likely from running around outside training during the 8-month span that passed between these two portraits. The documentation included with the piece says, “We might expect her fatigues to dampen her individuality, yet even in an army uniform, the young woman’s personality shines through” but I think she exerts herself more confidently in the second image. She is facing the camera head on, instead of gazing at it with her head tilted, her body is also facing the camera, but one shoulder is lowered, giving off a more nonchalant and again, confident, poise. I found the picture on the right more attractive because of her confident gaze and slight smile/smirk. Because these portraits are less formal than those taken of US military personnel are, they allow the subject’s personality to shine. After learning a bit more about the subject, it seems that military training has empowered her. It is quite the contrast between the picture on the left, which reminds me of a timid librarian. I have to admit that my first impression of the left side is stereotypical; all she needs is a pair of glasses to complete the image of the characteristic bookish type. The text next to the piece also mentioned it being a “transformation from one state of being to another,” and Clark Kent/Superman came to mind. Her transformation conveys the uplifting of the limits that our social society once placed on the statute of being a woman and of empowerment—were the second image to show a defeated and disheveled individual, the artist would be conveying the sexist view that much of society still expects.