GUP #029 - Women

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Guide to Unique Photography Europe e 6,00 T H E w o m e n i s s ue

intro

GUP#29

The Women Issue Not that we have become fanatic feminists overnight, but supportive of affirmative action, GUP has opted for a 'ladies only' issue this spring.

Although dabbling in the fine arts was generally respectable among ladies of leisure in the 19th century, photography was seemingly one of the very few professions – along with such traditional occupations as nursing and teaching – to be considered socially acceptable. And so women have been on both sides of the camera since day one.

For much of photography’s 170-year history, women have expanded the medium's roles by experimenting with every aspect of it. While our website serves as an ever-growing welcoming arena ( www.gupmagazine.com), open to highquality photography of all sorts, from this page on we would like to promote the visibility of women photographers and their work.

GUP#29 serves as an exclusive, be it wide-angled view on the art of being feminine.

Erik Vroons, Chief Editor 2

Š Aneta Bartos (Speed Graflex), 2009 by Martynka Warwzyniak

collectors tip ellen von unwerth

Fräulein Von Unwerth Even if you have absolutely no interest in Christina Aguilera, the sexual energy that Ellen Von Unwerth draws out of this 'songstress' is hard to deny. Indeed, the exposure of erotic femininity – in which both are notorious specialists – is very tangible, but the tension between the photographer and the sitter nevertheless deviates from most other shoots of its kind.

Having a woman behind the camera establishes something with a female subject that a male colleague never could.

Instead of sexual tension, what grows between Von Unwerth and her models is something closer to trust; a state of being that leads to relaxation and surrender to the camera. The fact that Von Unwerth was a professional model for years before starting a career as a photographer no doubt helps in this respect.

“Women are not just there to be admired, they are there to be enjoyed,” Von Unwerth herself once famously stated. Her intimate but also playful and casual approach creates an atmosphere in which even the most distrustful models relax and start to play with the camera. Not so much an author directing her subjects as a co-conspirator, Von Unwerth gives the viewer a privileged peak into the inner lives of these fun-loving girls. Sexuality, intrigue, femininity and the joy of life; they can all be found in this work by Von Unwerth, whose artistic career spans more than 15 years. However, she always leaves the viewer empty handed. Frustrating as that may be for the male spectator, the actual truth of what happens when women encounter each other in this way will not be revealed.

Von Unwerth's book Fräulein (Taschen, 2010) includes a selection of her favourite shots and never before published images, including this remarkable portrait.

For print sales information, please contact: Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Hazenstraat 27, 1016 SM Amsterdam.

Open: Thursday-Saturday, from 12 to 18 pm.

Tel: +31 6 5203 15 40 Email: info@woutervanleeuwen.com www.woutervanleeuwen.com

Christina Aguilera, 400 x 500 mm, print run: 15

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Š Ellen von Unwerth / Art + Commerce, courtesy Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen

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Š Natalie Aye

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column

Objectivity is aN illusion

Hannah stares at me. Her grey eyes hold me at gunpoint, like a double-barrelled shotgun. She wants to know: who am I and who are you? A freckled body, a snowy landscape seen from above where the rain softly falls and leaves behind rust-coloured smudges of the earth that carries the snow.

I try to look at her like a sculpture carved carefully from the background. A work of art that was brought to life with the best tools, was given the shadows that sleep on her white body with the finest of brushes. But I can't look at her like that.

The tranquillity extends no further than her pose. Her gaze has more layers than an Escher lithograph.

by Shinta Lempers I could pretend I know what is going on in her mind. A teenage girl is as fragile as freshly blown glass. I think back to the time I became an adult. Hannah sees that. But she is right when she tells me that I shouldn't show that. It is now our little secret. We seal it with an appropriate gesture. We close our mouths, zip our lips closed, turn the lock and throw the key far away. I look at Hannah again. I see her wake up in the morning and grab her hip bones. They still stick out, and this fact gives her a feeling of security. I see her walking carefully around the swimming pool. She is afraid of slipping and breaking a leg. She is terrified of not being able to swim anymore and becoming obscenely fat. I don't know if she actually feels that, but I see it.

With her fingers, Hannah combs a strand of hair behind her ears and turns her back on me. Her movements are as graceful as a kudu. Decisive, sensual. I suddenly see another Hannah, a young woman who knows what she wants and fights for it. I'm confused. Which emotion is mine? I only want to capture her as a work of art, devoid of emotions. If only I were a man, I sigh. Hannah reassures me. "Objectivity is an illusion," she says, as she looks at me intently.

Natalie Aye lives and works in London. These images, including one of a 14-year-old Lily Cole, brought her to the attention of The Independent newspaper in the UK, who announced her as an important new talent. Her work has been exhibited twice at The National Portrait Gallery, as part of the Photographic Portrait Prize, currently sponsored by Taylor Wessing. www.natalieaye.com 9

Carnival Strippers (1976)

by Susan Meiselas

For Susan Meiselas (USA, 1942), full member of Magnum Photos since 1980 and current President of the Magnum Foundation, connectivity is the key element in photography: “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don't belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” Meiselas is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America, which were published widely throughout the world. On the following pages, however, we present a selection of facsimile pages from Carnival Strippers (1976), her first major photographic essay on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs. It includes both the photography by Susan Meiselas and the writings in which women discuss their lives.

Produced during the early years of the women's movement, Carnival Strippers reflects the struggle for identity and self-esteem that characterised an era of change. From 1972 to 1975, Meiselas spent her summers photographing and interviewing women who performed striptease for small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Following the shows from town to town, she portrayed the dancers on stage and off, photographing their public performances as well as their private lives. Besides a photographic documentation of these ‘girl shows’, this work also includes over 100 hours of taped interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers and paying customers.

The first representation of Carnival Strippers was actually in installation form, with the sound in an open space floating above and around the photographs. To Meiselas, what mattered was sound. She could also be intrigued by stand-alone photographs, but her innovative use of sound resulted in a totally different viewer experience: “It was their voices, their very words, the way they said things.” How do you engage people with the lives that you're hoping to reveal or share in some way? Photography is a mute medium and in itself tells or reveals little about what people know of their lives. But Meiselas' aim is always to convey emotion and engagement to overcome the distance between people and images. The complexity of these exchanges could thus only be framed in a mix of words and images.

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portfolio susan meiselas

portfolio debbie grossman

My Pie Town

by Debbie Grossman

In the spring of 1940, Russell Lee wrote to his boss, Roy Stryker, at the Farm Security Administration, proposing he spend several weeks shooting Pie Town, New Mexico, a small settlement of homesteaders near the state’s western border. Lee wanted to photograph there because he felt Pie Town represented the kind of hardy, small-town American community that was disappearing. His pictures of the town are tinged with his mythologising of a difficult way of life and the land-conquering patriotism that is at the heart of the American story. Seventy years later, Debbie Grossman (United States, 1977), drawn to a similar utopian ideal, made over Pie Town to mirror her fantasy. In this work, she re-imagined, revised and reconstructed a selection of Lee's beautifully photographed images. The archive she created resembles Lee's with an important difference – in Grossman’s Pie Town, the rag-tag community of homesteaders is populated exclusively by women.

My Pie Town will be on show at Julie Saul Gallery in NYC from April 14-May 21. www.debbiegrossman.com

The original images by Russell Lee can be seen on www.gupmagazine.com

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Š Debbie Grossman / the Julie Saul Gallery

portfolio rachel papo

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Serial No. 3817131 Rachel Papo (USA, 1970) was raised in Israel. Almost 15 years after her mandatory military service ended, she went back to several Israeli army bases, using photography as a vehicle to re-enter this world. Serial No. 3817131 represents her effort to come to terms with the experiences of being a soldier, from the perspective of an adult. At an age when social, sexual and educational exploration is at its most intense, the life of an 18-year-old Israeli girl is interrupted.

Papo’s military service had been a period of utter loneliness, mixed with apathy and pensiveness, and at the time she was too young to understand it all. Through the camera’s lens, she tries to reconstruct facets of her military life, hoping to reconcile issues that have been left unresolved.

A selection from this series can be seen during the 2011 Month of Photography Denver at the Redline art space (until April 26) and will then travel to Centro de la Imagen (Mexico) in May. www.serialno3817131.com

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portfolio vanessa winship

Seeds Carried by the Wind

Vanessa Winship (UK, 1960) went to Georgia for the first time in 2003, not long after the so-called Rose Revolution.

Although she didn’t go because of the revolution as such, this was the context in which she found herself. In what ways are people attached to the country? How does this define their identity? Georgia is a place with a sense of an ancient past and somehow the people’s features reflect that. There is a kind of melancholy, an underbelly that almost inevitably makes it a place literally crumbling under the weight of an unsustainable romance. Georgia is saturated with icons, from the walls of ancient churches

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and cathedrals, to life-sized portraits of loved ones dotting the landscape, painted by an artisan to commemorate a life. Winship went in search of the people she felt most represented this collective imagining, which is reflected in her formal portraits and landscape typologies.

Winship’s Sweet Nothings series will be exhibited at Blue Sky, the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, in May 2011.

A book on ‘her’ Georgia is in the making. www.vanessawinship.com

portfolio lucia ganieva

the

FABRIC 26

Lucia Ganieva, who was born in Russia but has lived in the Netherlands since 1993, graduated cum laude at the Foto Academy in Amsterdam in 2007. For her series Factory she visited the 'Kombinat named after F.N. Samoilova', a very big textile plant in the town of Ivanovo, some 275 kilometres north-east of Moscow – the town of brides. The population was mostly women, who all worked in the textile industry. During the time of the tsars, this town was the centre of Russia's textile industry. A number of plants manufactured a variety of fabrics, mostly based on cotton and linen. Over time, largely due to competition from low-wage countries such as China, they have almost all been forced to close down. www.luciaganieva.com

portfolio 4sale

THE EROTIC MIRROR 4Sale is the culmination of a year-long creative union between four talented artists of Eastern European descent; four female photographers turning their naked eyes on themselves. Varying in style, the works are all populated by the girls themselves. Combined, this resulted in a frank, playful, and occasionally enigmatic celebration of female eroticism.

Here, we present half of the collective. Art and fashion photographer Aneta Bartos (Poland) questions how sex and spirit play a role in shaping cultural and religious taboos. Her darkly romantic images are shot on Polaroid film in seedy hotel rooms and have the look of sinister erotic tableaux.

The Ukrainian artist and fashion photographer Yana Toyber – she hadn’t done any nudes before – shot her fellow collaborators underwater to give the images a dreamy and tender quality, symbolising a global, embryonic form of nurturing.

A full slideshow of 4Sale, including work by Martynka Warwzyniak (Poland) and Elle Muliarchyk (Belarus), can be seen on www.gupmagazine.com

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yana toyber

portfolio mirjana vrbaski

Verses of Emptiness

Mirjana Vrbaski (Canada, 1978) aims to "balance the notions of ambiguity and universality" in a portrait. As presented in the independently published art book Seven Verses of Emptiness, these portraits function as an exploration of the endless potential for meaning behind silence and emptiness. Taking an evocative portrait is extremely challenging, as it should capture both the physical features and character of the subject. At least, that is the accepted wisdom in our photographic tradition. But Vrbaski sees things differently. Just as silence is the necessary condition or grounds for speech, her ‘emptiness’ is not negation but pure possibility, the condition or grounds for being. www.mirjanavrbaski.com

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portfolio viktoria sorochinski

anna

&eve

This large, ongoing narrative project by Viktoria Sorochinski (Ukraine, 1979) occupies a space somewhere between fantasy and documentary.

Even though all the scenes are staged, they portray a real mother-daughter relationship. But the boundary between the child (Eve) and the adult woman (Anna) is blurred to an unusually high degree. Always interested in folk tales as a representation of common knowledge, and their influence on children’s perception of good and bad, and morality, Sorochinski creates new myths that represent her interpretation of the relationship between this mother and daughter through phantasmagoric scenes. Over the course of the project, Eve starts to feel that she is a ‘woman’ like her mother. At the same time, she is still a child who lives in her own world.

Anna & Eve will be exhibited in the FNAC gallery, Milan (Italy) from May 3 – June 7, 2011 www.viktoriart.com

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portfolio sophia wallace

Masculine femininity, often dubbed 'cross dressing' in popular culture, has a long history in Western cultural memory. Yet it is often dismissed as frivolous entertainment. Sophia Wallace (USA, 1978) decided she needed a new strategy to prevent unconscious prejudice towards gender construction and representation. By merging a fashion approach – casting, direction, lighting, styling and makeup – with a documentary strategy using real people, Wallace intervenes in the common dismissal of queer imagery, particularly nonnormative femininity. The subjects in this series reside in Berlin but hail from a diversity of backgrounds. The specificity of urban context is vital, as Berlin is one of the few cities in the world where female masculinity has a prominent visual presence.

Wallace has received critical acclaim for her work, including honourable mention in MAGENTA Flash Forward. Berlin Lookbook, Wallace’s ongoing exploration of femininity and gender norms, is a collaboration with Nadja Brendel (producer). Her solo exhibition The New Masculine was shown at Leslie / Lohman Gallery in New York in 2010. www.sophiawallacephotography.com

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Mar 25 – May 29

Set Amsterdam Dana Lixenberg

Foam Keizersgracht 609 1017 DS Amsterdam

The Globe Hotel, Room 301, 2010 © Dana Lixenberg

In Set Amsterdam, Dana Lixenberg portrays the Dutch capital as a kind of film set, shaped by its current and former residents. The absence of people in the images turns the viewer’s gaze to the space itself, almost as if it were a film character. It is not that odd that Lixenberg chose film as her inspiration. She took these photographs after being commissioned to shoot actors’ portraits for the eight-part television series A'dam/E.v.a. (Amsterdam and Many Others).

The series, written by Robert Alberdingk Thijm and directed by Norbert ter Hall, which will be broadcast on Dutch television from March 6, 2011, examines individual lives in Amsterdam.

The Netherlands T: +31 20 551 65 00 www.foam.nl

– May 10

© Eikoh Hosoe.

Irrationality Eikoh Hosoe

Eikoh Hosoe is undoubtedly among the most important photographers since World War II. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession and irrationality. Kahmann Gallery presents Irrationality, a retrospective of 25 black and white silver prints. Hosoe abandoned a documentary style for bold images utilising mythology, metaphor and theatrical impulses.

Kahmann Gallery Lindengracht 35 1015 KB Amsterdam The Netherlands T: +31 20 515 85 89 www.kahmanngallery.com

guide

Apr 2 – May 7

Coming Closer and Getting Further Away Asako Narahashi

Jumeirah Beach, Dubai, 2009 © Asako Narahashi, courtesy Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen

Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen Hazenstraat 27 1016 SM Amsterdam The Netherlands T: +31 6 5203 15 40 www.woutervanleeuwen.com

For her series Coming Closer and Getting Further Away, Asako Narahashi (1959) photographed the coast from the surf, her waterproof camera partly submerged, like the shark from Jaws lying in wait for unsuspecting bathers. Because of the unusual position that the seawater occupies in the foreground, a distorted perspective is created in which bridges, buildings, aeroplanes and mountains lose their familiar proportions. The result is alienating images, which are both soothing and sinister, as if we are drowning people about to be engulfed by the sea.

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Mar 18 – Apr 18

Brightside/Shot in Flanders Jimmy Kets

In Brightside, Jimmy Kets photographs the backdrops of erotic fairs, amusement parks and zoos, using a bright flash to reveal their superficiality and faded lustre. The people in these pictures are just extras, caught up in the search for happiness and pleasure. Kets deliberately avoids a psychological approach: “I don’t feel the need to draw blood. What fascinates me is that first impression, the way people present their exterior to the world.”

Shot in Flanders shows how the symbolism of mythical America has taken root in Flanders. For this new series, Kets photographed car washes, Cadillacs with gleaming chrome, and battered replicas of the Statue of Liberty found on the roadside. They are images that point the way to an American dream that has long evaporated.

© Jimmy Kets

Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond Nes 45 1012 KD Amsterdam The Netherlands T: +31 20 622 90 14 www.brakkegrond.nl

the netherlands europe africa middle east usa asia australia Amersfoort Armando Museum Zonnehof 8 3811 ND Amersfoort T: +31 33 46 140 88 www.armandomuseum.nl Reli Avrahami Notes Concearning the Past - May 15 Amsterdam Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401 1016 EK Amsterdam T: +31 20 531 89 89 www.huismarseille.nl Marrigje de Maar & Bert Teunissen - Jun 5 Stadsarchief Amsterdam Vijzelstraat 32 1017 HL Amsterdam T: +31 20 25 11 511 stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl Various Artists Amsterdam, City of Pictures - Jun 5 Reflex New Art Gallery Weteringschans 83 1017 RZ Amsterdam T: +31 20 42 35 423 Nobuyoshi Araki It was Once a Paradise Apr 28 - Jun 7 Motive Gallery Ms. van Riemsdijkweg 41a 1033 RC Amsterdam T +31 20 330 36 68 www.motivegallery.nl Viviane Sassen Parasomnia - Apr 28

Oude Kerk Oudekerksplein 23 1012 GX Amsterdam T: +31 20 62 582 84 Various Artists World Press Photo Apr 22 - Jun 19

Nederlands Fotomuseum Wilhelminakade 332 3001 KJ Rotterdam T: +31 10 203 04 05 nederlandsfotomuseum.nl Various Artists ANGRY - Jun 13

Den Haag Gemeentemuseum Den Haag Stadhouderslaan 41 2517 HV Den Haag T: +31 70 33 811 11 www.gemeentemuseum.nl Laszlo Moholy-Nagy The Art of Light - May 1 Leiden Museum Volkenkunde Steenstraat 1 Leiden T: +31 71 51 688 00 Tom Hendriks Straatkinderen Wereldwijd - May 1 Nijmegen Museum het Valkhof Kelfkensbos 59 6511 TB Nijmegen T: +31 24 36 088 05 www.museumhetvalkhof.nl Various Artists Photo (=) Art - Jun 19 Rotterdam Kunsthal Westzeedijk 341 3015 AA Rotterdam T: +31 10 440 03 01 www.kunsthal.nl Vincent Mentzel The Eye of Holland - Jun 13

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Museumpark 18-20 3015 CX Rotterdam T: +31 10 44 194 00 www.boijmans.nl Various Artists Surreal - May 15 Maritiem Museum Rotterdam Leuvehaven 1 3011 EA Rotterdam Tel. 010-4132680 www.maritiemmuseum.nl Piet den Blanken Bootvluchtelingen - Sep 4 Mariniersmuseum Wijnhaven 13 3011 WH Rotterdam T: +31 10 41 296 00 Cornelie de Jong Van Scholier tot Marinier - Jun 26 Uden Museum voor Religieuze Kunst Vorstenburg 1 5401 AZ Uden T: +31 41 32 634 31 Marie Bot Miserere, de Grote Boetebedevaarten in Europa - Apr 25

Utrecht Flatland Gallery Lange Nieuwstraat 7 3512 PA Utrecht T: +31 30 231 51 81 www.flatlandgallery.com Various Artists I promise to love you - May 15 Melkweg Gallery Marnixstraat 409 Amsterdam T: +31 20 531 81 18 www.melkweg.nl Karen Vlieger In de Wachtkamer van de Dood - Apr 17 Austria Camera Austria Lendkai 1 8020 Graz T: +43 316 815 55 00 www.camera-austria.at Various Artists Communitas Apr 9 - Jun 19 BELGIUM Stieglitz19 Arthur Goemaerelei 19 2018 Antwerp T: +32 495 515 777 www.stieglitz19.be Françoise Huguier - Apr 3 Cultuurcentrum Knokke-Heist Meerlaan 32 8300 Knokke-Heist T: +49 50 63 04 30 www.fotofestival.be Photo Festival Future Portraits Apr 10 - Jun 30

More Guide on www.gupmagazine.com

Fotomuseum Antwerpen Waalse Kaai 47 2000 Antwerp T: +32 32 42 93 00 www.fotomuseum.be Various Artists Hungry Eyes - Jul 5 Young Gallery Avenue Louise 75b 1050 Brussels T: +32 2374 07 04 www.younggalleryphoto.com Ron Galella Jackie My Obsession Apr 9 - Jun 5 FINLAND Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art Nykytaiteen Museo Mannerheiminaukio 2 00100 Helsinki T: +35 89 17 33 65 01 www.kiasma.fi ARS Festival 2011 Apr 15 -Nov 27

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Guide to Unique Photography Exhibition and Event Guide T H E w o m e n i s s ue