In her short life, which ended tragically aged 22, Francesca Woodman took thousands of her signature black and white portraits. Victoria Miro Gallery recently showed a selection of fifty, taken from her recent retrospective.
Self-Deceit, Francesca Woodman
Woodman's portraits concentrate on the female nude; most frequently Woodman presents her own body as the focus of the cameras attention. Using illusion and reflection, Woodman makes her figure appear to blend in to the environment surrounding it. Obscuring her form behind furniture or making it appear part of the room, Woodman presents the body as an object and in doing so explores the relationship between figure and form.
Self Portrait, Francesca Woodman
Whilst in some ways, the elegantly shot black and white photographs capture the glamorous, mystical status of the female nude, in other ways, Woodman communicates a start realism. Her use of her and others bodies as props borders on exploitative - in comparing the figure to its surroundings, it could be argued that Woodman degrades the body to an object of function or decoration. One cannot help but question what relationship the artist had with her own body - do these photographs display fascination or disgust?
0 comments:
Post a Comment