WEEKLY DISCUSSION 2.0 #9 - Francesca Woodman

<p><em>Self Portrait at Thirteen</em>, Francesca Woodman, 1972:<br /> http://www.heenan.net/woodman/francesca-w/26fwdmn.jpg<br /> <br /> There are alternating views of her work as being more in the Surrealist tradition or more from a feminist viewpoint, the female (usually herself) being often disguised or concealed. Of course, both . . . and more . . . can be true.</p>

<p>What I see here is not just a self portrait of a young girl but what I would call a self-photographer-portrait in that we see how much the medium/art of photography was part of her.</p>

<p>By the age of 21, Woodman had taken her own life by jumping out her New York City flat.</p>

<p>Her father, also an artist, regrets that work will be seen retrospectively through the act of her suicide and knows there is so much more to it than that. But future history, IMO, is part of any work of art, since future eyes will be looking at it. I think we can do both, seeing her work in terms of her suicide and also with eyes that see her as much more than that singular act, if we choose.</p>

<p>One statement of hers that stands out to me, when asked why she photographed herself so much, is "It’s a matter of convenience – I am always available." While I'm sure there's honesty in that, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little more to it as well.</p>

<p>She often has herself disappearing into or merging with the space in which she puts herself. What does that say about our relationship to our surroundings, her own feelings about herself in the world, and photography's ability to express such things?<br>

http://newyorkarttours.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Space2_Woodman.jpg</p>

Without looking at more of her work, Fred, I would say I see an early creative bent in this photograph. It is not a smiling selfie. It seeks more than that and achieves more, with her in the environment and with a play of light that is itself engaging. It is hard not to color a work with the knowledge of early suicide. Diane Arbus being the most well known and famous for her great body of work. What is revealed here is not much, so it is an enigma to guess what the hair covered face conceals. Or reveals, your choice.

She used models when they were available.

 

I don't read too much into the quote, other than how she said it.

 

After listening to her in the documenaries I have seen, I don't see

her any more deep than any other typical teenage girl, with mental illness and dysfunction parents.

 

She would be posting crap on Facebook, from an iPhone/IPad, if she were alive today at the same age. She used the tools that were afforded to her, notably a used Yashicamat without a timer. Sets that her parents owned. A model who was always available.

<p>That's some selfie stick she has there. Really though, it's an interesting selfie and perhaps at the time her self portraits were something unique. What this picture may mean is anybodies guess. It's the kind of selfie I would do, the only selfies I take are the noisy, blurry images taken under my darkroom safelight. I like these because nobody else to my knowledge takes these kinds and isn't that the whole point - to be creative? Woodman may have been just trying to be different. As to her suicide well, sure that's going to be a major factor in any in-depth assessment of her work. This may have had a lot to do with her work or it may have had nothing to do with her work, we will never know, but people really go for the whole romantic "tortured artist" myth when trying to identify the origins of creativity.</p>

It's not a stick. It's just a simple air actuated bulb release.

 

You can see the tubing in a lot of her shots, or bulb in her hand.

 

Many of her shots are long enough exposures to not need it. She would just click the shutter and run into position. Either remaining still or moving during the open shutter.

 

Compare shots she made when she was 13 to those after attending art school as an adult. You will see minimal increase in technique nor much change in style of the photos. That's not normal.

 

 

As most here are probably artists, if you were an artist at 13 and one at 21, how much did your art, the quality of your art, or the technique of your art change in those 8 years?

 

There is no notable development in her work, at a time when development normally occurs rapidly.

 

Re: face hiding

 

When I take self portraits, I don't show my face. And when others happen to get a shot of me, I hide my face. I am not tortured, or enigmatic symbol for masculinism. I just don't like my picture taken. It best, it's because my face is not photogenic. Maybe she thought the same of herself.

<p>I see youth. not just hers but also mine. The title <em>Self Portrait at Thirteen </em> gives it away but even without the straight forward informative title The photo says teenager to me. Nearly all of her work reads as a young experimenting photographer. I like it for that.<br>

What also see in her work is a time period. Maybe even locked in. Her work feels like the 70s and 80s. Although when I check dates on her photos I see a significant organic change occurring. I think her work was becoming less dated and age dependent. Had she continued her life and photography into digital and eventually some commercial ventures I would have wanted to follow her closely. She was showing interest in fashion work including an interest in Deborah Turbeville who managed a good career with some similar flavors IMO.<br>

I enjoy looking at artists early years. There is often an exciting energy that comes to the surface. In Francesca's case I think her <em>early middle</em> years would have been something special. I wonder which of her photos form the first years would have made the edit in her future. </p>

Photo does stir remembrance of the tender age. So what would I have done back at age 13. For self expression and experiment? I could not afford a YashicaMat, or anything like it then,. one of the best oldies, surely no way get to process the film, no darkroom. And not very interested in my urban environment, unfortunately. (All gone with the wind, aka urban- renewed, saga of those times.). Urban immigrant villages, how I could have captured them if I had the gift of foresight.

 

I think,if I recall at all, I was seeking a realistic western style 45 cal. cap pistol, playing at outdrawing John Wayne in "Red River." I think then I was messing with a department store chemistry set. Of course. To see what explosives I could make from magnesium powder and potassium nitrate. I thought of photography if at all in rather banal terms. Came from family of musicians, so one would have expected something to rub off. Nah.

 

Art, what the heck was that all about then.Action was the theme of youth. But high school soon gave me a chance at student journalism, editor in chief no less. With photo strictly adjunctive. I gave assignments to the photo guy and edited the results if that counts. In short Documenting Student Mugs. Which is probably how I yet approach my camera work if one followed a trail memoir style so it goes.

 

I also like to see what the young and self absorbed are doing nowadays just for the fun of it. In 30 years we may archive the stuff. Self portrait as subject? Never occurred to me. Juvenile acne and all. Girl stuff is different than boy stuff you say? How so? Is Woodsman typical or aberrant? And is her work a fetish thing or is there some substance there? I ask because I have no idea and bet we can read a lot into what we find interesting or hits a chord, which we like or dismiss. Basis for sharing values.

<p>Interesting choice, Fred. I've seen a fair number of Woodman's photographs but not <em>Self Portrait at Thirteen</em>. I appreciate her work, but over time I seem to find a certain sameness to a lot of it. Black Silver makes an interesting comment regarding what Woodman might have done if she were growing up today. But I think her work rises well above simple "selfie" level and if she got her start in this century I think she would have produced more than just another poorly lit "duck lips" photo in a bathroom mirror. Of course, we'll never know. </p>

<p>I have sometimes considered Woodman's work in relation to contemporary female photographers like "Miss Aniela" (Natalie Dybisz) and other similar female self-portraitists who use Photoshop to create surreal, angst-ridden works like <em>The Smothering</em>: </p>

<p>https://calliegarp.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/the-smothering-2008.jpg </p>

<p>It causes me to appreciate Woodman more by comparison. Her work does have a strong surrealist element to it, but I think it is only the vehicle for feminist expression. </p>

 

"But I think her work rises well above simple "selfie" level and if she got her start in this century I think she would have

produced more than just another poorly lit "duck lips" photo in a bathroom mirror."

 

Doubtful that she could have gotten away with all the pre-18 nudes on Facebook.

That's a given.

 

She did a whole pubescent nude series of her and a nude old man model. Virtually impossible to find that online, now.

 

Today, that's would have landed her, her model, and her parents in jail. With her removed from her parents custody when

she got out.

<p>My take on this extraordinary complex abstract composition of blurred light and a wooden interior with a a young (?) woman covered in woolen clothing and blond hair is intense attention. What is going massage and intention? It makes me reflect on worldly arrival and departure. Death and Birth.</p>

<p>I haven't seen this photo before and would not have thought that it was one of Francesca Woodman photos. I have visited the exposition on her works in the Cartier Foundation in Paris, some twenty years after her death, which travelled around in Europe and impressed viewers by her creativity - and the drama of her short life.</p>

<p>For me, they were images of an extraordinary creative and knowledged young artist who was never in her lifetime recognized to her merits and never really had the chance of developing her artistic skills further than her first experimental stages. Makes me think of a Louise Bourgeois in her first years of activity. Had Francesca Woodman lived her full life as artist, the world might have been enriched with great creative works. With what she left behind her we only have hints of what she could have been able to create. </p>

<p>"<em>What is going on and what is the message and intention</em>" I wanted to write above but the sentence came out differently. Sorry !</p>

<p>Fred said, "I think we can do both, seeing her work in terms of her suicide and also with eyes that see her as much more than that singular act, if we choose". It is difficult for me to view the photos in ways that are not colored by my knowing of her suicide. Also, I look at them in a particular way knowing that the photographer was female, and young, and that many are self-portraits. This knowledge certainly affects how I see them, and I wonder what I would think if I saw her photos without that knowledge. Sometimes it doesn't much matter the age, sex, culture, or other backstory of the photographer. I probably would have approached the Weston photo we discussed recently in the same way had I not known it was Weston's. But in other cases, the backstory adds a lot of interest.</p>

<p>It's a shame and such a waste when a person, especially someone so young, takes their life. The pain on her family must have been excruciating. The meaning of her "art" is really beside the point. </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The meaning of her "art" is really beside the point.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Her art is what she was able to share with the world before she left it. Her death, sad as it is and compelled though we may be to express such heartfelt sentiment for her and her family, doesn't wipe away all that she had to offer. If anything, making her art beside the point, IMO, would be to dishonor and disrespect her in favor of a gesture of sympathy for her and her family.<br>

<br>

Having read what her father had to say about the meaning and import of her work, I seriously doubt he'd appreciate reading that her art was beside the point. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>When I look at the Francesca Woodman self portraits I don't see them as much as her disappearing into the space as they are her <em>emerging</em> from the space, wanting to be seen and noticed and not remain invisible.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Phil, great insight. It really broadens my view of these photos to look at it your way, though I still tend, for the most part, to see them the way I described. I actually think both views can work together. Disappearing can entail emerging and vice versa. And even if that entailment doesn't work, switching back and forth between the two views seems rich as well.</p>

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<p>selfie</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I haven't a clue why we're talking about selfies.</p>

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<p>to be creative</p>

</blockquote>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>a young experimenting photographer</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I hear ya', Mark! <br>

<br>

And a very good observation, j.d.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>people really go for the whole romantic "tortured artist" myth when trying to identify the origins of creativity.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Here, Marc, I leave you. First off, and it might be a topic for a different thread, I don't think it's a myth that a lot of artists are tortured. Many artists and photographers talk about how lonely it is do to art and often it is through a kind of worldly alienation that the expressiveness of art seems to find an outlet. But more importantly, we're talking here about a woman who had been depressed according to those that knew her well, was admittedly neglected as a child, and who did commit suicide. That seems a pretty good indication of someone who's tortured. And it seems clear that she approached her photography as an artist (as opposed to as a selfie-maker). So, regardless of whether the notion of the tortured artist is a myth or not in general, in this specific case, the facts seem to be staring me in the face.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Her work does have a strong surrealist element to it, but I think it is only the vehicle for feminist expression.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Interesting point, Steve. I think the best surrealism is a vehicle for ideas. Much attempted surrealism rings very hollow because there is no idea behind it, IMO.</p>

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<p>I haven't seen this photo before</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I hadn't either, Anders, though I was familiar with a lot of her work. When I decided to use one of her photos for this week, I did a more exhaustive search and I chose it because I saw something compelling in it, especially her connection through the cable to the implied camera and also because she was so young when she made it. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I see youth. not just hers but also mine.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Nicely said, j.d. Now that you mention it, I see my own here, too, though it's not the youth of my years on Earth as much as the youth I still happily feel in my photography. I started late so it keeps at least a part of me young. And that experimenting you mention is key. Just the other day I was talking about growing into a new series or way of looking I'm trying out. And I think you've helped nicely tie that into the notion of youthful exuberance and experimentation.</p>

<p>Francesca was an artist. Her work makes that obvious. Her suicide may color the way many experience her photos but as Fred wrote ... we can "...<em>also</em> [see]<em>with eyes that see her as much more than that singular act"<br /></em>When I look at the images Fred posted and her body of work in general I do not find myself looking for any meaning. I am drawn in by her choices (location, pose, self portrait, ...) . Her style. For me the content does not feel as if it is driven by message or meaning beyond the frame. We the viewer supply that imo. She chose a style that is enigmatic and leaves much for the viewer to complete the photo. In that alone there is meaning to be found. She made us a participant. And that is special and in time with continued work & her talent and craft growing, well who knows. .... as is I see the structure and making of her photos too much to experience any real depth and nuance of a message beyond lets see where this goes and how do I do that.<br /> What I experience is a natural talent finding her legs and learning to express herself and experimenting with the language. Eventually as her vocabulary increased she would have a lot to say.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The meaning of her "art" is really beside the point.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>My point in saying that was that she ended her life five decades too soon. Who knows what art, expression, and meaning and goodness the rest of her life would have brought had she stayed alive. I don't think you can compare a few pictures taken when she was a teenager to the expanse of life had she lived. To discuss her art without mentioning this enormous and tragic loss minimizes life itself which is certainly more important. </p>

<p>So what you are saying Fred is that if Woodman had led a fairly "normal" upbringing and early adult life then she wouldn't be an artist? Certainly she may have created different photographs. The work a photographer (or painter, musician, etc.) is in large part influenced on who they are and their culture and their life experience. The fact that she committed suicide so young can only leave us speculation on where she would have gone. Who knows, after the work she completed up to her death, she may have given up photography completely or stayed with it and created nothing but sub par work. We will never know. It just seems that it's common for people to look to the work for clues whenever an artist goes off the deep end.</p>