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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 17, 2009 13:55:42 GMT
 This is a wonderful look at the work of Lillian Bassman, who abandoned her fashion photography 40 years ago, only to reassess and rework it recently. Bassman herself is a fascinating figure. |
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Post by cigalechanta on Jul 17, 2009 18:53:36 GMT
there's an article about her in the Ny Times
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 17, 2009 22:59:27 GMT
Cigelachanta ~~ if you click on the words "wonderful look" in my post, you'll be taken to the NYTimes article and the slideshow.
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Post by lagatta on Jul 27, 2009 12:26:33 GMT
Those are lovely and I'm glad the artist has salvaged her work, but I don't find her view of womanhood entirely admirable.
I'm decades younger than she are and for me, the social and cultural movements of the late 60s lifted stifling constrictions on women, including "armour" undergarments, deep inequality and many many other restraints. The "costume" was just a fad, but the impact has been lasting. No going back to a time when psychotherapy's aim is to convince doubting women to procreate like everyone else.
I found this comment insightful:
12.
joannchartier
Oregon
July 17th, 2009
11:30 am
Though she has 30 years on me, I too still work in my studio nearly every day pushing the boundaries of my art -- and THAT is what the "sexual revolution' of the 60s gave me -- not the hippie dippie excess of teenagers but the OPPORTUNITY to do my work my way. Bassman appears here as a woman who thinks, and stands on her own to present her picture of "femininity" for the rest of us to absorb. Thanks for the article but please expand your own vision of women and their work.
Some of the other commentors went overboard and don't allow for the exploration of beauty (male or female) in their feminist outlook - pity, that - but Joann Chartier, who is of my cohort, expressed the deep malaise this story makes me feel.
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Post by cigalechanta on Jul 27, 2009 19:00:24 GMT
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Post by lagatta on Jul 27, 2009 19:50:49 GMT
Oh, I'd love to see that. There are also many worthwhile exhibits at the V&A in London.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 28, 2009 3:12:43 GMT
I have to disagree with the views of Lillian Bassman presented in Reply #3.
Based on the article, at least, she left fashion photography not because she objected to the changes of the times, but to the personality cult of the models.
This was a woman who made a career in what was a man's world when she started out. She took the commercial projects she was given and managed to make them into art. If you go to page one of the article and look at the image that starts the slide show -- the one of the woman's head reflected in the mirror -- it's obvious that any of her work can be viewed as photography for photography's sake. So, her feeling that the models of the mid-sixties were dictatorial prima donnas would preclude her using them strictly as artists' models, as she'd been doing earlier.
To have her abandoned work fetched forth by a fellow artist and to look at it again and see the artistic value there hardly brands her as a woman with a constricted view of femininity.
I find the comment by Joanne Chartier arrogant and short-sighted. Her harsh judgment of Ms. Bassman and parallel smug vision of herself as emancipated from the past displays a certain ignorance of 20th century history.
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