Photographer: Francesca Woodman

I recently came across the works of Francesca Woodman. Does any one

have any comments on her photographs, and her tragic life?

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Here are some sites with her life and works:

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<a href="http://www.heenan.net/woodman/">A Francesca Woodman Gallery

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<a href="http://www.hungryflower.com/leorem/woodman.html">Francesca

Woodman websites</a>

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<a href="http://www.slack.net/~kiki/woodman.html">A site</a>

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<a href="http://photoarts.com/journal/romano/woodman/">Another

site</a>

impressive. and just what i needed, thank you so much for posting this Vic.

What I can't find on those websites is why she took her life at age 22. Was if depression? drugs? LSD? schizophrenia? What were the contributing factors that made her life so tragic?

Well, I guess she had no choice. No real artist has. Moving and tragic as it is. What an impressive oevre. A name to remember and to watch out for. Here's looking at you, Francesca. Thanks a lot for posting, Vic. It made my day.

Well, I guess she had no choice. No real artist has.

 

What does this mean? It sounds like nonsense to me.

cheers Vic

 

Occasionally I need a shake out of my local focus particularly when it comes to more contemporary work.

 

Interesting work

Really powerful images, but I have to think about Lutz's comment. After all, there are many

kinds of deaths and rebirths as well. However thinking in absolutes is often associated with

being 22 years of age and as sensitive, capable and intelligent as she obviously was.

Thanks so much. Very impressive photographs. It's a wealth of compositional ideas.

 

Scott

I can't say I found the pictures that interesting. It seemed like the usual art-student stuff to me.

Oh well, Eliot, where to start... Look again. To me it appears more than plausible that she felt irrepressively compelled to do it, had to do it, the same way she had to do all that beautiful, troubling and vulnerable stuff. This is exactly _not_ just the young aesthet experimenting a bit with light and form, doing just the average art student's stuff. No, this is a young, highly sensitive, highly gifted and courageous artist exploring herself, her body, her dreams, nightmares and obsessions. These pictures scream at me, "help me to find a way to get at terms with what I feel, see and what I am". Apparently there was no help, not to the extent necessary, but just some consolation by what she did, by her art, for the time it lasted. God bless her. The thought of rebirth occured to me, too. A consoling thought, indeed.

These pictures scream: I've seen this stuff in an art book so I'll do the same. There's nothing here that hasn't been seen a hundred times before in any art college.

H.P. I'd be delighted if you linked me to any art books with work of similar depth - the same way that I am happy Vic linked us to Francesca Woodman's art. But before you start belittling what apparently is none of your preferences, and to question its originality (an art student's concern, BTW, and far beyond the point...) please consider that her work dates from the seventies.

Here is a random sample from typing 'art college' in google...<a href="http://dams.rca.ac.uk/netpub/server.np?find&site=Show05ol2&catalog=catalog&template=deptph.np&field=Department&op=starts+with&value=pho&sorton=Surname">RCA 2005 summer show, photography. </a> <p> There is a huge difference. I don't get out to hundreds of art college exhibitions like Harvey but the corridors here at work have lots of local art college student's work on the walls (changed over twice a year) and Francesca Woodman would have nothing to fear from any of it. </p>

I really liked the photos. Interesting stuff. One of the articles mentioned that she was influenced by Duane Micahels and I think that is true. 22 years old is so young to end your own life. Really tragic indeed.

Erm, what's wrong with what happens in art colleges? Some students are artists before they even get there.

One reason this forum has suffered in recent months is that dissenting voices are shouted down. So, for example, no comment against the latest hero or, in this case heroine, is permitted. Perhaps we should all step back and see if we can put our views without making them personal or, perhaps, the majority want a forum where personal attack is the preferred form of intercourse.

Calm down, HP. No one 'attacking' you, and you're the only one doing any shouting.

 

People were polite enough not to comment on your ill-considered remarks until you repeated

them more forcefully, so your doom and gloom forecast for the forum seems off the mark.

 

Thanks for the links, Vic!

All he said was he didnt like the pictures and people turned nasty. I heard this about the leica forum. you all need to let peopel have their say instead of thinking your right all the time.

My take on these images was a lot of self-absorption. And I read anger too, as in "Talking to Vince". When I read "estate of Francesca Woodman", at the bottom,I wondered if she had died by her own hand. Highly talented, but even for a suicide, she went way before her time. Had she been able to hold out against her demons a few more years, her art would have matured; maybe she'd have reached the stature of an Arbus.

 

Sorta reminds me of Kurt Kobain. When you hear his song, you hear talent and energy, but also the rawness of youth and obsession with self.

 

Some artists are able to produce mature work at a very young age-look at Mozart, whose 250th birthday was 2 days ago. But contemporary popular culture seems to ignore the distinction between adolescent and adult, as if the capability to reproduce were all you need.

 

And I say let Harvey type, he's a good egg and has been a productive member of this forum for years. Thanx for the linx Vic.

Good grief Jimmy and H.P. I don't think anyone was in an "attack" mode. They just disagreed. I happen to like the photos but I can certainly see why some would not. And Jimmy, some of these guys in the Leica forum are a rowdy bunch. That's what makes it so much fun!

I, for once, agree that I have seen much related work before. Anna Gaskel, Araki,

Moriyama, Nan Goldin, even recent Sally Mann (in fact, her still life work, more than her

earlier family work reminds of that). what is wrong with that? where did the absurd myth

that an artist has to be creative as if he is a tabula rasa and not influenced by other's work?

what other field, within or out of art is supposed to be like that? Most of the stupid art I

come across daily come exactly from people that are obsessed with being "original".

my take on her work is that I like some of the pictures, some I feel I have seen before,

some I don't like. In general I know of much more famos artists that I like much less of

their works. It does look to me a work that can easily be found in one of the great recent

(mostly European and japanese) photography magazines.

First, thanks to Vic for posting this and inviting discussion.

 

Based upon the photos I looked at, many of her poses on these self-portraits looked contrived. But no sooner do I say that than I remind myself that every posed photo in the world is to a significant extent "contrived," and the self-portraits are if anything moreso, since the photographer controls both ends of the deal.

 

So to put it more accurately, a number of *her* contrivances, versus those offered by other photographers who offer self-portraits, left me cold. A few I thought were very provocative (in a powerful, artistic way).

 

I was not and still am not enough of an art student to comment on Harvey's assertion about their lack of originality.

 

Disagreement about photos (and other things) makes this place more interesting. Harvey spoke his mind. Lutz and Trevor, respectively, asked for support/amplification and offered contrary impressions. Nothing wrong with any of that, to my eye.

<i>........My take on these images was a lot of self-absorption. And I read anger too, as in.......</i>

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Nothing wrong with self-absorption or anger as long as you don't have to live with that person ;-) LOL. I mean if the resulting images are great then why worry about the artist?

I would say that some of these images are themselves immature, however well composed. I have the same problem with a lot of Rock and Hip-hop; the artists are so obviously gifted, but the content is something they will eventually grow out of. So, they're "great images", but they aren't as good as they could be.

Rami, while I do agree with your plight for accepting if not embracing the existence of influences in art, I would like to question your introductory statement, as you seem to be mixing up some things:<p>

<i>rami G Photo.net Patron, jan 29, 2006; 10:32 a.m.<br>

I, for once, agree that I have seen much related work before. Anna Gaskel, Araki, Moriyama, Nan Goldin, even recent Sally Mann (in fact, her still life work, more than her earlier family work reminds of that). (...) It does look to me a work that can easily be found in one of the great recent (mostly European and japanese) photography magazines.</i><p>

 

Sorry, but that _you_ or _I_ saw anything like Woodman's work "before" in _our lifes_ has no relevance at all, given the fact that Gaskel(l)'s work dates from the nineties, Araki's and Goldin's from the - what? - late eighties, and you tell me from when Sally Mann's "recent work" dates - I suspect you are referring to the most recent decade...? And from when do the "great recent magazines" date that you refer to...? All of the references you are citing are dated _after_ Woodman who worked in the _seventies_. Get my point?<p>

The fact that I can relate to her art as opposed to others may be a strongly personal one, given that we were born the same year (1958) and that I find her output much deeper than mine has been and will maybe ever be. I was quite aware then of what was going on in the arts and in photography especially, but not of her work. Although she might even have "matured" at a later stage, that hypothesis must and can not detract from the power to be read in her early body of work. Having been an audiovisual arts student myself, having pursued a career in that field for 25 years so far and having been a professor for 15 I humbly insist that there has seldom been a similar loss of talent.<p>

As far as the complaints about the tone of the discussion so far are concerned - geez, get a life! This is the gentlest forum I've ever come across. Just read and think before you write and everything will be alright. ;-) Cheers.