From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 08/31/02-01:25:17 AM Z
On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Christopher Lovenguth wrote:
> is why I have chosen them. If this catches on in this group, I’ll put
> together some names of male photographers as well.
>
> Here they are:
>
> 1. Francesca Woodman
> 2. Sally Mann
> 3. Joyce Tenneson
> 4. Nan Golden
Chris, I like your list -- all of them, tho Sally Mann is the one whose
pictures make me catch my breath. But assuming we're talking just
*women* photographers, there's one I'd put next to her & above all others.
That's Rineke Dijkstra. Her portrait of a standing naked woman with her
newborn baby in arms is on cover of the Phillips auction catalog part 2,
2002, May 14. Expression, pose, concept & "story" are all extraordinary.
That the woman has just given birth is evident from her body, also from
thin stream of red running down her leg. Sounds gruesome perhaps. It's
gorgeous, a true glory hallelujia to life.
As for Ruth Bernhard, she's one of my pet peeves in photography anyway,
the idea of a woman in a box is banal multiplied by repulsive (and I
recall from teen years that "box" was vulgar term for woman's sexual parts
-- or was that just in those parts? Freudian symbol anyone?)... but the
photographs themselves even without symbolism, are anemic, fake, pose-y,
insipid, artsy fartsy, bland, & all the same, lacking content beyond
"artistic naked-istic la dee dah..."
The estimate for the Dijkstra was $40,000 to 60,000 tho I don't know what
it ultimately sold for.
PS. I haven't seen a Nicholas Nixon yet that looked "natural"to me, rather
like people unnaturally trying to act natural.
Judy
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