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Kati Horna
Sin ttulo (Calle Independencia), ca. 1941-43

Fabiola Hernndez Flores, Claudia Mandel Katz y Amor Gutirrez (Posgrado y
Postdoctorado UNAM)


This surreal image
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structured by Kati Horna can be read in terms of gender on the basis of
three lines of analysis. The first one, related to the feminine/object/passive versus the
masculine/subject/active. Though the feminine predominates in the image by the centrality
and the size of the figure, it is an object, an inert and rigid mannequin, incapable of
movement but which can be manipulated. So, while the female is reduced to decorative and
object, in contrast, the human is represented by male figures who are on the bus and that
symbolize autonomy and freedom of movement. One man, whose arm rests outside the
window of the bus, seems to curiously observe the mannequin. In this relation between
subject and object, the feminine -object of the masculine gaze- is associated with the
passive role, while the masculine, is the active role. In the Western imagination, the
feminine as visual sign, has been conceptualized from the subject position statement and
not as a subject of enunciation.
A second line of inquiry is motivated by the bride iconography. In such perspective,
Calle Independencia is an enigmatic visual construction where the surrealistic mannequin
coincides with two other women iconographic trends, emerged in Mexican art during 1930
and 1940 decades. As Dina Comisarenco has written, the unhappy bride was one common
theme among female surrealist artists like Olga Costa, Maria Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo,

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Kati Hornas photography shows in the center of the picture a female mannequin covered with a white prom
dress that reveals only her feet, hands, neck and face. The mannequins low-angle shot contrasts with the
frontal view of an interstate bus, located in the middle-ground, while the background is composed of a dark
curtain, behind which, low buildings can be seen.
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who questioned the idea of marriage as the principal goal of womens lives.
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In Hornas
photography theres also a critique of marriage proposed through the iconographic
synthesis of the bride and prostitute characters. The prostitute is barely described by the
bollard behind the mannequin feet. In Mxico, this kind of prostitute iconography was
popularized by films such as La mujer del Puerto (1933). In this sense, Horna calls
attention to the ideological scheme that lays behind the bride and the prostitute
constructions. As Griselda Pollock explains, these schemes hold the men domination over
women in the process of turning them into subjectivized subjects, through the relationship
of social identities and mental formations.
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Here, the showcase bride and the public woman,
both elusive glance schemes, are object of contemplation, possession, commodities.
The sample of a third axis that analyzes the possibilities of the category public
against private invite us to read again Kati Hornas photograph as a new opportunity to
show the fragile figure at the limits between both places
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and at the same time impel us to
provide an agency to central femenine figure. This destructive process is possible because
of the twisted visual that a feminist critic produce to us, about the provided position of
Donna Haraway, the person who observes conceives describes and produces not only art
but also a concept.
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In this sense, Hornas camera moves the mannequin from the place
where it is show, while at the same time gives another shape to the vouyeurist, who became

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For example, The Bride (1941) by Olga Acosta is a representation of a matured woman dressed in pastel
colors, instead of the typical young woman in a white dress, suggesting she is no longer a virgin or perhaps,
because of her social condition the wedding dress is not affordable for her. On the other hand, Maria
Izquierdo in Veils Bride (1943) demystified marriage romantic view, through a composition about the
wedding symbols in a disordered room where the bride is totally absent, proposing marriage as an act of
violence. Dina Comisarenco, To Paint the Unspeakable: Mexican Female Artists' Iconography of the 1930s
and Early 1940s Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring- Summer, 2008), pp. 21-32.
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Laura Traf-Prats, Introduccin en Griselda Pollock, Encuentros en el museo feminista virtual. Tiempo,
espacio y el archivo, Madrid, Ctedra, 2010, pp. 7-38.
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Monica Bolufer analyses since feminist historiography topics as maternity, marriage, and family topics that
can not be defined as topics in a private life. Her own analysis questions the public-private dichotomy.
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Donna Haraway, Conocimientos situados: La cuestin cientfica en el feminismo y el privilegio de la
perspectiva parcial, en Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres: La reinvencin de la naturaleza, Madrid, Ctedra, 1995.
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an object from the photographer perspective. Kati Horna exposes the mannequin spectators,
puts them at the view just like that voracious eye, thanks to her, we realize that they can see
from a privileged position.
On the other hand, the position of the photographer reminds us of a "backstage", in
a well-known play: the woman as an object observed by the masculine eye. With her
position Kati Horna develops the trick, a kind of persistent fiction in time and space, but
not natural, because neither the feminine nor the masculine is, or the passive and the active
roles are; they are being, they are going to be done, and there is the clue: they can be
undone.
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Sources:
Bolufer, Monica, Madres, maternidad: Nuevas miradas desde la historiografa, en Franco, G.
(ed.), Debates sobre la maternidad desde una perspectiva histrica (Siglos XVI al XX),
Barcelona, Icaria, 2010, pp. 51-8.
Butler, Judith, Actos performativos y constitucin del gnero: Un ensayo sobre fenomenologa y
teora feminista, en Debate Feminista, Vol. 18, Mxico, oct., 1997.
Comisarenco, Dina, To Paint the Unspeakable: Mexican Female Artists' Iconography of the 1930s
and Early 1940s, Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring- Summer, 2008), pp.
21-32.
Haraway, Donna, Conocimientos situados: La cuestin cientfica en el feminismo y el privilegio
de la perspectiva parcial, en Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres: La reinvencin de la
naturaleza, Madrid, Ctedra, 1995.
Traf-Prats, Laura, Introduccin en Griselda Pollock, Encuentros en el museo feminista virtual:
Tiempo, espacio y el archivo, Madrid, Ctedra, 2010, pp.7-38.

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Judith Butler, Actos performativos y constitucin del gnero: Un ensayo sobre fenomenologa y teora
feminista, en Debate Feminista, Vol. 18, Mxico, oct., 1997.