Dear Spare Rib ,
Self Impressions is an exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery in which the photographers have used their photography “to examine their lives, to say what they think of themselves”. (Sue Davies, director of the gallery, Sunday Times, April 3rd). In general many of the reviews have been uncritical of the exhibition and as such some viewers will have had preconceived ideas — one idea being that these pictures are not sexist pictures. How could they be when they are taken by women?
It seems to us that the latter fact does not exclude them from the sexist arena. Women can be adept at seeing themselves through male eyes and these women photographers are no different. Why the predominance of female nudity? The media continually confronts people with imagess of naked, passive females associated with selling products or selling sex. These photographs are obviously not selling products but why have these photographers held onto the usual stereotypes? They have given us no verbal explanation of this so we have to take the images at their face value.
Shirley Beljon’s photographs certainly seem to match up to the cliched playboy ideal; where is her alternative to the posed, black-stockinged, strategically suntanned women? At the other end of the fetishist scale Joyce Tennyson Cohen exhibits romantic, ethereal versions of herself. What is she? At worst she is an idealised art object, at best the wide-eyed model as seen everyday in flake adverts. In general there are a lot of photos with headless figures and bodiless legs, and a preponderance on the elements of mystery and narcissism. Why the retreat into these essentially male defined categories?
What should women be?
These photographs imply that women are simply their bodies. The photographers exclude themselves from any other kind of human experience, even that which is termed interior, such as, problems, joys, hopes, fears, thoughts, etc. Thus they condemn themselves, as the media condemns women daily, to an existence as a passive body without thought or action.
Anne McNicholes and Moira Knowles.
Dear Anne and Moira,
Thank you for writing. Obviously the questions you raise can best be answered by the photographers themselves, but we’d like to raise some points in response to your letter.
Yes, a number of the photographs did appear sexist although the intention may have been entirely contrary. A lot would have been clarified if there had been more information, even personal statements by each woman — it would have put the whole exhibition in perspective and avoided misinterpretation.
Inevitably both photographers and subjects have internalised sexism but some images of naked women, we felt, went beyond the conventional, self-conscious, passive "Nude".
They suggest a very ditferent relationship between subject and viewer. The women are self-possessed, not offering themselves up for consumption. Take for example Shirley Beljon’s photograph of her mother in the bath.
You ask “Why the predominance of female nudity?” These photographer’s work can be seen as part of women’s attempt to explore and reclaim their bodies for themselves.
But photography is loaded with sexist associations: no only through its commercial use but also because certain techniques have developed sexist overtones.
Some of the women seemed particularly caught up in the visual cliches of photography; the object off centre, a strong light from one side until the photographic process becomes the dominant concern, and in many cases, the camera fails to be used as a means of self examination and reassessment.
Annie, Laurą and Rosie.
Self Impressions is a touring exhibition. Contact Sue Davies, Photographers' Gallery, 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2
