PDN Photo of the Day

A Celebration of Women, by Women

Conventional art historical representations of female figures have traditionally shown women passively linked to the landscape through gendered associations of nature, eroticism and fertility.

A new show at The National Museum of Women in the Arts entitled “Live Dangerously” turns that on its head – and does it all through the lens of the female gaze. It employs humor, performance, ambiguity and inventive storytelling to present fierce, dreamy and witty images of women presiding over the landscape.

The exhibition features work by artists Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Anna Gaskell, Dana Hoey, Mwangi Hutter, Graciela Iturbide, Kirsten Justesen, Justine Kurland, Rania Matar, Ana Mendieta, Laurie Simmons, Xaviera Simmons and Janaina Tschäpe.

All 12 photographers use the female body as sculptural material, positioning figures in natural surroundings to suggest provocative narratives and, in doing so, challenges us to see ourselves and our environment in new ways.

Of note is the immersive installation of Janaina Tschäpe’s, presented here in full for the first time. Her “100 Little Deaths” photograph series depicts the artist lying in fields and on beaches, pathways, terraces and forest floors in locations around the world. With results that are both startling and intentionally theatrical, Tschäpe inserts herself into these sites as a way to contemplate her own passing from the earthly realm.

Xaviera Simmons uses performance to address questions of marginalized bodies in landscapes, particularly regarding womanhood and blackness in the United States and in her ongoing “She” series (2016–ongoing), Rania Matar (b. 1964) photographs young women in lush landscapes in the United States and the Middle East to portray their individual beauty through their relationships with their environments. Matar’s model in Yara, Cairo, Egypt (2019) stands partially obscured in the crevasses of a banyan tree, her limbs echoing the trunk’s vertical shoots to create an uncanny air of mystery.

Mention should also be made of Graciela Iturbide’s 1979 Angel Woman in the Sonoran Desert. It’s as surprising as it is arresting.
— Samantha Reinders

“Live Dangerously”
National Museum of Women in the Arts

September 19, 2019 – January 20, 2020

Related Articles

Three Women Photographers Challenge Long-held Ideas of Beauty & Gender
Underwater Muses
Foliage, Fabric and Female Flesh

Mona Kuhn: The Desert, The Nude Figure and Abstraction

Posted in:

Fine Art

Tags:

, , , , , ,

Comments:

Comments off

Share

Comments are closed.

Top of Page