Cindy Sherman | Untitled #22, from the series Film Stills, Courtesy of the Artist, Metro Pictures New York and Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers Cologne, Munich, London
Over 150 photographic works are on display through October 26th in a show called Female Trouble: The Camera As Mirror and Stage of Female Projection. The featured works include pieces by Diane Arbus, Monica Bonvicini, Sophie Calle, Julia Margaret Cameron, Comtesse de Castiglione, Nan Goldin, Hannah Höch, Robert Mapplethorpe, Tracey Moffat, ringl + pit, Pipilotti Rist, Cindy Sherman, Katharina Sieverding, and many others. The selected pieces question, or challenge the view of women in society - here is how the gallery explains the exhibition:
Since the invention of photography more than 150 years ago it has been largely women who have used this technical medium to project themselves through role playing and masquerading. As well as the experimental urge to constantly create something new, the camera has also served as a means of questioning clichés of female representation. Playing with the image of the eternally feminine was and remains a discourse with gender identity, its social and political definition and what goes beyond that.
The exhibition focuses on contemporary women artists such as Cindy Sherman, Sarah Lucas, Monica Bnvicini and Pipilotti Rist, who with the aid of photography and video art examine the female image, deconstruct and redefine it. At the same time, the exhibition reaches back into the 19th and early 20th century when women such as Countess Castiglione, Lady Hawarden, Claude Cahun and Florence Henri discovered photography as a means of (self-) projection and enquiry.
This sounds like a great exhibition - I wish I were going to be in Munich to see it! I hope that the exhibit will travel to other cities, no word yet, but we’ll keep you posted.
