The Art of the Glance: How Five Visionary Photographers and Artists Unpack the Mechanics of Voyeurism

There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of photographic practice: nearly all photographs are voyeuristic to some degree. This is not merely an observation from modern critics, but a sentiment echoed throughout the rich and provocative history of the medium. Renowned photographers across generations have frequently drawn direct parallels between capturing a person’s likeness on film or digital sensor and stealing a furtive, unauthorized glance at something deeply private, forbidden, or hidden from the public eye.

The legendary street photographer Diane Arbus once articulated this sentiment with striking candor, noting that she always considered photography to be a "naughty" activity. For Arbus, that transgressive quality was precisely what drew her to the craft. When she first picked up a camera, she confessed, she felt a profound sense of perversity—a feeling that remained one of her favorite aspects of the artistic process. Similarly, contemporary British photographer Martin Parr has openly grappled with the ethical implications of his own documentary work. Parr has acknowledged that he accepts that all photography is inherently voyeuristic and exploitative, noting that he must live with his own conscience and guilt as an intrinsic part of the artistic test.

While the medium itself relies on looking at others without their explicit ongoing participation or awareness, some practitioners lean far harder into the voyeuristic foundation of the medium than others. Peeping at the world through lenses ranging from improvised apertures to ubiquitous global surveillance technologies, these creators do not merely use voyeurism as a practical method to capture a subject. Instead, they actively unpack, critique, and expose the very nature of voyeurism right in front of the lens. Examining how modern and contemporary artists have engaged with this impulse reveals a complex spectrum of human curiosity, privacy, and technology.

JEFF MERMELSTEIN, #NYC

Jeff Mermelstein’s acclaimed project #nyc approaches the bustling metropolis of New York through a very specific, modern interface: the glowing chat screens of everyday citizens’ smartphones. Mermelstein practices a form of contemporary voyeurism that is instantly relatable to anyone who has ever ridden public transit in a crowded city. It taps into the universally forbidden impulse to peer over a stranger’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of what they are typing to friends, family members, romantic partners, or even adversaries while navigating daily life.

Over the course of several years, the photographer mined this urban behavior for all its artistic worth, capturing sharp, fleeting snippets of text-based conversations. These captured fragments of digital communication span an astonishingly wide spectrum of human experience, ranging from mundane roommate disagreements to the explicit logistics of intimate encounters. By framing these private digital confessions against the backdrop of an anonymous urban crowd, Mermelstein highlights how deeply intertwined modern public spaces have become with private, digital interiority.

DANI LESSNAU, EXTIMITÉ

Pinhole cameras have long served as a quintessential tool for voyeurs, utilized historically by both avant-garde art photographers and clandestine international operatives to capture the world from an obscured, hidden perspective. However, artist Dani Lessnau subverted this traditional methodology entirely for her daring photo series and performance project extimité, choosing to place a pinhole camera directly inside her own vagina to capture intimate portraits of her lovers.

The resulting images, all of which were produced entirely through mutual consent, document moments of profound physical intimacy and intense personal exploration. Discussing the collaborative and psychological nature of the project in a 2018 interview, Lessnau explained that her individual lovers experienced a range of emotions initially. While some were noticeably awkward or shy at first, others adapted more quickly. As they engaged deeper with the photographic process, both the artist and her subjects opened themselves up to a unique sense of personal freedom. Lessnau noted that this shared sense of liberation proved to be intensely arousing in and of itself, transforming the camera from an instrument of surveillance into an active participant in shared intimacy.

SOPHIE CALLE, THE HOTEL

In her celebrated photographic series The Hotel, captured during the 1980s and later published as a standalone monograph in 2021, conceptual artist Sophie Calle turns her voyeuristic gaze away from living bodies and focuses instead on the material traces they leave behind. In the opening text of the publication, Calle recounts her experience being hired as a temporary chambermaid at a hotel in Venice in 1981, an employment arrangement she secured specifically to fuel her artistic inquiry.

Assigned twelve specific bedrooms located on the fourth floor of the establishment, Calle utilized her daily cleaning duties as an opportunity to examine the personal belongings, discarded items, and scattered possessions of unsuspecting hotel guests. Through observing these intimate, minute details, she constructed narratives about lives that otherwise remained entirely unknown and distant to her. Although her tenure at the hotel lasted only three weeks, that brief window of time provided more than enough material for the artist to forge a profound exploration of presence, absence, and the prying eye.

JON RAFMAN, NINE EYES OF GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Jon Rafman’s seminal internet art series centers around what is arguably the premier, all-seeing voyeur of the 21st century: the technology giant Google. His ongoing photographic collection is meticulously compiled by combing through the vast archives of Google Street View to isolate unusual, uncanny, or jarring images captured by automated systems. These range from masked gunmen and burning vehicles on desolate highways to bathers on seaside beaches and groups of youths aggressively throwing middle fingers up at the passing camera rig.

The series derives its evocative name from the specialized panoramic camera rigs—often referred to as the "nine-eyes"—mounted atop vehicles dispatched across the globe to map public thoroughfares for Google Maps beginning in 2007. Discussing the implications of this digital panopticon in a 2013 interview, Rafman observed that this phenomenon represents an entirely new species of surveillance, one vastly different from the top-down, totalitarian versions depicted in classic dystopian literature such as George Orwell’s 1984. Instead, Rafman noted that the technological apparatus of Google Street View is largely accepted by contemporary society. Much like popular social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, individuals willingly participate in broadcasting aspects of their private lives, often deriving a profound sense of meaning from that visibility. Decades into the digital age, the boundary separating the passive subject from the active voyeur continues to dissolve.

ANDY WARHOL, SELECTED FILMS

In many ways, Andy Warhol stands out as the ultimate voyeur of the modern art world, an artist whose entire oeuvre frequently revolved around passive observation and the documentation of everyday existence. This voyeuristic impulse is perhaps most palpable in his pioneering avant-garde films produced during the 1960s, including minimalist works such as Sleep, Blow Job, and Couch.

Each of these cinematic pieces demonstrates an obsessive, unwavering fixation on human subjects—including the artist’s close associates and lovers, such as the poet John Giorno—documenting their behavior during extended periods away from the public eye. It is widely recognized that Warhol frequently presented these intimate acts with a distinct sense of emotional detachment, maintaining a cool, unblinking distance in his gaze, much like an invisible observer watching silently from a hidden vantage point.