Portraiture: Contemporary Photographs

Portaiture: Contemporary Photographs
curated by Paul Ha

December 6, 1996 – January 12 , 1997

The photographic gaze and the photographic process have been pushed around in recent years, leaving spaces for greater exploration in traditional genres. The “male gaze” has been examined, reexamined, appropriated, tossed out and reappropriated by both male and female artists. The influence of digital processing and programs like AdobePhotoshop have radically changed the process of making and viewing photography.

The artists here focus their gaze as women, embracing the complexities of the presentation of a self and their convictions and ambivalence about femininity. Presented here is a new mode of portraiture, allowing the artist a multiplicity of process and meaning. A number of these artists are working in the genre of portraiture through the use of digital manipulation, home movies, performance. The idea of the portrait has, for these artists, transformed into a deliberate image which lends itself more to construction than reflection. These artists do not propose to subvert a system, rather they aim to be able to see as they like, to share as they like. As viewers we are released from the constraints of a male framework, and at last we are free to see these artists’ subjects as freely as they have expressed them.

Including works by:

Marianne Courville, Julie Dermansky, Eve Fowler, Anna Gaskell, Mary Magsamen, Carrie Moyer, Sue Schaffner, Lisa Shafir, Susan Stein