Photography Quarterly #94

Toe Andy Warhol Foundation 'for the VtSual Arts

This publication is made possible in part with generous support from individuals, CPW members, subscribers, PQ advertisers, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Catskill Mountain Foundation, & with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

PHOTOGRAPHYQuarterlystaff

Editors, Kate Menconeri & Ariel Shanberg

Editorial Assistant. Rachael Cohen & Liz Glynn

Advertising, Larry Lewis

Editorial Interns.JodiRosenblatt.JennieEnright.& Katherine Finkelstein

Typesetting, Emily Owen, Ruder Finn, Inc.

PHOTOGRAPHYQuarterly is published four times a year by the Center for Photography at Woodstock with publishing support from the Catskill Mountain Foundation.

The Center for Photography at Woodstock is a not-for-profit SOI (c)3 artsist-centered organization dedicated to supporting artists working in photography and related media and engaging audiences through opportunities in creation, education, and presentation. Founded in 1977, CPW offers year-round programs in education, exhibition, residency, publication, fellowship, and services for artists.

PHOTOGRAPHYQuarterlyis printed by Ruder Finn Printing, Long Island City, NY and distributed by Ubiquity Distributors, Brooklyn, NY.

PHOTOGRAPHYQuarterly #94, Vol. 23, No. I ISSN 0890 4639.

Copyright ©2006, Center for Photography at Woodstock, 59 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY 12498.

Text & Images: ©2006 Caitlin Atkinson, Maria Elena Buszek, Nicole Cawfield, Jen Davis, Dana Faconti, Mary Farmilant, Lola Flash, Graciela Fuentes, Jane Hammond, Cornelia Hediger, Rebecca Horne, Charise Isis, Elizabeth Line, Tiffany Ludwig, Rachel Mackow, Mike Mergen, Kate Menconeri, Anna Neighbor, Susanne Neunhoffer, Renee Piechocki, Shawn Records, Jodie Rosenblatt, Kanako Sasaki,Soody Sharifi.Ariel Shanberg, Xaviera Simmons, and Brian Ulrich.

All photographs and texts reproduced in PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly are copyrighted by the artists and writers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the Center for Photography. The opinions and ideas expressed in this publication do not represent official positions of CPW.

SUBSCRIBE:to receive PHOTOGRAPHYQuarterly four times a year USA $25 / Canada & Mexico $40 / International $45. Pleasemake checks payableto CPW; MCNISNAMEX accepted. T 845-679-9957 I F 845-679-6337/ info@cpw.org / www.cpw.org

CPW STAFF

Executive Director, Ariel Shanberg

Program Director, Kate Menconeri

Operations Manager, Larry Lewis

Program Associate, Rachael Cohen Arts Administration Interns.Jennie Enright & Katherine Finkelstein

DIRECTOR EMERITUS Colleen Kenyon

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Susan Ferris, W.M. Hunt, Arie Kopelman, David Maloney, Kitty McCullough, Emma Missouri, Dion Ogust, Roger Ricco, Ariel Shanberg,Alan Siegel,Gerald Slota, Bob Wagner

ADVISORY BOARD

Koan-Jeff Baysa, Philip Cavanaugh, Darren Ching, Brian Clamp, Daniel Coone. Julie Galant, Howard Greenberg - Founder, William Hannigan, Doug James, David Karp, Ellen K. Levy, Sarah Hasted-Mann, Jeffery Milstein, Yossi Milo, Sarah Morthland, Gloria Nimetz, Alison Nordstrom, Robert Peacock, Lilo Raymond, Miriam Romais, Ernestine Ruben, Kathleen Ruiz, Neil Trager.Judy Upjohn, Rick Wester.Andrea Young

Image credits: Cover© Jen Davis, Purity, 2002, 24x20", Chromogenic Print, Courtesy Lee Marks Fine Art Shelbyville, IL Top Row (L-R): © Soody Sharifi, Pool (detail}, 2003, 29x36", archival pigment print;© Nicole Cawfield, Thin-up Amie, 2002, 20xl6'', gelatin silver pri~t: Cover of book On The Sixth Day (detail) by Alessandra Sanguinetti. Second Row (L-R): © Kelli Conn~II, Convertible Kiss (detail), 2003, 30x40", digital c-print, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, NYC; © Cornelia Hediger, Doppleganger (detail), 2006, 3x3", c~prints on handmade paper;© Mike Mergen, Philadelphia Naval Shipyards #138 (detail), 2006, 12xl2 • Pigment print.

WOMEN SEEING WOMEN

Dear Readers,

For this issue of the Pq.we have assembled the work and ideas of a number of women image-makers .rnd two writers from across the country whose work takes the proverbial bull by the horns and offers new perspectives in the representation of women.

Many of us form a visual sense of our identity and self-worth through the engagement of images,.specifically photographs. The impact of images can be a unifying one giving us a sense of commonalfty, belonging, and through images of ourselves, both recognition and acceptance. They can also, through a combination of what they present and do not present, create a set of visual 'norms' that exclude most and misdirect many. For women, this presents a difficult and daily challenge as they seek to establish a relationship between how they see themselves and how they are seen by others.

We have selected a group of contributors, some whose work has recently appeared in CPW's galleries and some who came to our attention during the formation of this issue. The images presented in the following pages open windows to groups of women rarely seen on their own terms as in the work of Soody Sharifi. They find beauty and strength amongst those whose identity blurs lines and doesn't fit dominant categories as with the images of Jen Davis and Lola Flash. They appropriate and deconstruct fabricated representations of women as seen in Nicole Cawlfield's pin-up portraits. They embrace taboo subjects and foster new dialogue as with the work of Charise Isis and Two Girls Working. Kansas City-based art historian, Maria Elena Buszek, Ph.D. helps trace the evolution of this dialogue by outlining the shifting generational perspectives and their culmination in the work of Nicole Cawlfield.

Complimenting these explorations is Elizabeth Line's essay PassionateAttitudes which presents the work of eight women photographers and two poets. Diverse in approach, they each explore themselves and the world around them in effort to define a personal sense of place within society, history, and photography.

What unites them is their collective refusal to sit passively by while others define how women are represented. They represent a generation that came of age after the social and cultural battles of the I 970's and whose ideas are often referred to as third-wave feminist perspectives. Each in their own manner, shines a light on those traditionally placed in the shadows, appropriates the taboo, or confronts the issues and challenges women face today. Through their images they empower their subjects and enrich the ways in which women are represented.

In truth it would require a hundred issues of the Pq to reflect the complete dynamic range of perspectives and approaches, so please consider this issue the Pqs contribution to a much larger conversation.

This issue of the Pq also features our much-anticipated annual compet1t1on, Photography Now. Dana Faconti, editor and publisher of Blind Spot, one of the most highly respected publications presenting photo-based art, selected this year's winners. Ms. Faconti took on the difficult task of selecting six exciting image-makers whose work stood out among a crop of over 250 submissions. Our sincere thanks to her for selecting such an inspiring group of photographers from across the country to represent Photography Now!

This issue marks Kate Menconeri's last appearance as co-editor. On behalf of all the image-makers, writers, and contributing editors who have had the pleasure of working with her and benefiting from her great talents, we want to thank her for enriching each issue of the Pqfor over IO years!

So, enjoy, explore, and drop us a line to let us know what you think! The next issue is around the corner.

-Ariel & Kate, Editors

© Jen Davis, Rumination, 2003, Chromogenic print, 20x24", Courtesy Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyville, IL.

JEN DAVIS

In this body of work, I deal with my insecurities about my body image and the direct correlation between self-perception and the way one is perceived by others. Most of my pictures take place in my home, revealing aspects of myself that are private and personal. I am evaluating my self-image, as an overweight female in her late 20s, dealing with ever-present pressures from the outside world.

My work is solely based on personal experiences that I have re-constructed into a photograph, but I believe that it speaks to the situation of many women in our culture.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Jen Davis earned her BA in Photography from Columbia College in Chicago and is currently pursuing her MFA at Yale. Her recent exhibitions include those at the Schneider Gallery in Chicago, Texas Woman's University Fine Arts Gallery in Denton, Creative Artist Network in Philadelphia, Stephen Daiter Contemporary in Chicago, the Houston Center for Photography, and was featured in Passionate Attitudes at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in fall 2006. Her photographs are in the collections of Columbia College, the Library of Congress, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Her work was published in Camera Austria, Aperture, and PDN. She is the recipient of a 2003 Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award and two Albert P.Weisman Memorial Scholarships. Davis' work is represented by Lee Marks Gallery in Shelbyville, IL.

© Jen Davis, Rumination, 2003, Chromogenic print, 20x24", Courtesy Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyville,IN.

© Jen Davis, Fantasy,2004, Chromogenic print, 20x24", CourtesyLee Marks FineArt, Shelbyville,IL.

© Jen Davis, Recessed,2003, Chromogenic print, 20x24", CourtesyLee Marks FineArt, Shelbyville,IL.

SOODY SHARIFI

© Soody Sharifi, What GirlsWant, 2003, archival pigment print. 29x36".

I use my photography to question the role of women under Islam, as well as my own position as an Iranian-American woman. Drawing on my dual identity, I explore issues of oppression, exile, and integration that reflect the position of women as simultaneously inside and outside their respective cultures. In a larger context this can be seen as the position of women worldwide, a struggle between the conflicting demands of cultural and personal identity, specifically the tension between traditional and non-traditional roles for women.

As I explored the notion of difference, I saw something emerge in my work that was more than a clash of cultures -it was a synthesis, a vibrant cultural pastiche created by the juxtaposition of these seemingly dissimilar worlds. Teenagers, as a group, are constantly aware of themselves as individuals between cultures. They exist in, and partake of, the larger adult culture that surrounds them, while participating in another culture exclusive to teens. Teenage years bring a heightened awareness of the body and a new sense of self-consciousness. Teenage girls in particular are extremely focused on matters of appearance and spend a good deal of time trying to create a visual self-image. They eagerly imitate what they see in popular culture drawing on images from magazines, the internet, and TV to express themselves. There is certain theatricality inherent in this adolescent performance and I play this up in my work. Because teens are already invested in the process of self-construction, they take the visual cues I give them and become actively involved in creating the final image.

Even though most of these images are staged, I photograph these young women in their own private spaces, natural environments, and colors. Teenagers are capricious and fanciful. Once I give them the props, they often create the image themselves. I try to make my camera and myself as transparent as possible. Being young and uninhibited despite their culture and religion

© Soody Sharifi, Stairwayto Heaven,2002, archival pigment print, 29x36".

is part of being a teenager. When I started photographing the young Moslem women in Iran, I thought they would be much more confined and restricted in their attitudes and poses, nevertheless, once in a landscape with nobody around them, their body languagE;and their interaction with the landscape was as lib rated as any Western teenager. Wearing Hi jab or Islamic cover implies submission to a collective identity. However, I believe there is tension between the values of young people and that which the government dictates, between identity and uniformity. This collaborative project has allowed me to show that teens across the globe share many of the same characteristics, dreams, and fears.

Soody Sharifi an artist, teacher, and curator based in Houston Texas, was born in Tehran, Iran in I 955. She earned her degrees from the University of Houston - including a BS in Industrial Engineering in 1982 and a MFA in Photography in 2004. She has received fellowships from the Houston Center for Photography and Columbia University, as well as an artist grant from the Cultural Council of Houston. Her work has been shown in group exhibits at both national and international venues in Houston, New York, Baltimore, Tucson, and abroad in Austria, Finland, and China. Sharifi had her second solo show at CPW in 2004. She has since gone on to have solo exhibits in Oregon, Texas, Slovakia, and Finland. To view more of her work, visit www.soody-sharifi.com

© Soody Sharifi,Hoo/aGirl,2002, archivalpigment print, 29x36".

MARIA ELENA BUSZEK

As an emerging feminist art historian, I find Photography Quarterly's decision to zero in on the subject of women looking at women an exciting one. Not just because of the subject's relevance to feminism's long history, but because of its relevance to contemporary feminism, where the very notion of "looking"-indeed, the very notion of "woman"-means something quite different for women of my generation than for generations previous. I was born the year that Linda Nochlin published "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" and like all women my age, while I have never lived in a world without feminism, I have also lived to take for granted that feminism has changed tremendously since Nochlin first challenged the very question she posed in the title of this groundbreaking essay. In her contribution to a recently-published compendium of views on contemporary art and feminism, Nochlin herself spoke to this fact when she wrote:"Feminist politics today is far more multivalent and self-aware; the battle lines are less clearly drawn. The binaries-oppressor/victim, good woman/bad man, pure/impure, beautiful/ugly, active/passive-are not the point of feminist art anymore. Ambiguity, androgyny, and selfconsciousness, both formal and psychic, are de rigeur."' In art historian Peggy Phelan's own contribution to this dialogue, she celebrated what she addressed as the resulting ambivalence of young feminist artists, as well as situated this sensibility in the larger continuum of cultural history by connecting this ambivalence-as she puts it, "in the fullest sense of that term"-to the increasingly self-critical, multicultural, and relativist postmodern world in which our current, third wave of feminism emerged." This ambivalence permeates the work of contemporary feminist photographer Nicole Cawlfield, whose works exemplify

third-wave strategies for representing their politics.

But before launching headlong into a discussion Cawlfield's work, perhaps a brief description of feminism's history and terminology is in order. The wave metaphor for feminism's evolution has been frequently applied to Western women's history for its ability to simultaneously define surges in organized women's movement around specific issues and experiences, even as the term suggests the presence of differing voices, debates, and even generations within them. The first wave of feminism is by far the most nebulous, in large part because for nearly 150 years its myriad participants were almost uniformly involved in the one battle that tended to connect them: obtaining the vote in an increasingly democratic Western world. As such, feminism's first wave encompasses individuals and movements as separated by time and approach as Mary Wollstonecraft-whose 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published in the wake of the American and French revolutions-and Simone de Beauvoir-whose groundbreaking 1949 book The Second Sex was begun shortly after French women first gained the vote in 1945.

After a marked ebb in feminist activity in the post-World War II era-a backlash against women's rolling gains during both World Wars as well as the world-upside-down that they threatened to many-in the 1960s a resurgence was born of women's participation in the period's labor, civil rights, and anti-war movements. Popularly referred to, then as now, as the "women's liberation movement," feminism's second wave used strategies of the progressive movements from which its leaders sprung to

opposite page:© Nicole Cawfield, Thin-Up Aimie, 2002, gelatin silver print, 20x 16".

initiate and pass equal-rights legislation, as well as to produce feminist memoirs, theory, and collectives that raised consciousness concerning more insidious examples of sexism ingrained an'd normalized in everyday life. While this era is often discussed as not just popularizing but institutionalizing feminism-both as an "institution" with certain common goals and practices, and within institutions ranging from national governments to organized religion-the fact is that the second wave was far more diverse and contentious than is (or was) generally acknowledged, leading to visible fissures from the start of this era's feminist resurgence. Feminists of color and working-class women called attention to the upperclass Eurocentrism of second wave leaders, straight and lesbian feminists debated the "proper" sexual positioning of the movement's members, and sex-radical and anti-censorship feminists declared their right to sexual self-expression in the midst of anti-pornography feminist activism.

This expanding discourse-and the heated debates that it inspired-resulted not only in a diverse but an increasingly individualistic feminism. As the evolving movement both shaped and responded to postmodern theory it would by the 1980s, give way to what many have begun to both recognize and theorize as a third wave of the movement. As reflected in the feminist practices of Generations X and Y-who, for better or for worse, are generally the most reported-upon and self-identifying members of our contemporary third wave-our present era is currently defined less by a singleminded focus on organization and activism than on the critical study of identity-formation and representation, leading to a feminist politics expressed more subtly than the strident expressions of previous generations.

But, it's important to remember that what is unique about contemporary feminist thought is not its diversity, but rather its recognition and embrace of the diverse history of feminism itself. In the aforementioned feminist panel, when Nochlin recounted her experiences in the second wave she reminds readers: "Although all of us were for justice, equity, and a fair shake for women artists, critics, and academics, our views were eJ<tremely varied, and we were often at odds with one another."'" Nochlin laments that many feminist artists and historians have since attempted to pin down a unified trajectory for the second-wave as if this diverse generation were so many butterflies in a case; but both she and Phelan seem convinced and pleased that the willful desire to see and practice feminism in the myriad forms that have emerged in young women's art has carried on as much as it has critiqued the dialogue of their predecessors. Indeed, not only did the rolling developments of the now centuries-old women's movement evolve to where ambivalence is per-haps its inevitable fate. As Phelan compellingly points out: "In these days of hideous fundamentalism, the capacity to acknowledge ambivalence is [itself] revolutionary.""

Nicole Cawlfield's work illustrates this thoughtful ambivalence as one finds it expressed among emerging feminist artists today. In 2003 the Kansas City-based photographer began the still-evolving body of work that she calls her ThinUps series. By its inception, Cawlfield had been using the pinup as an inspiration in her carefully-constructed, pseudo-vintage portraits of vigorously contemporary women, which the artist began during her undergraduate studies at the Kansas City Art Institute. While her earlier pin-ups sought to subtly manipulate the poses and narratives of the classic pin-up

genre to either mock their sexism or underscore what she perceived as their (usually unwitting) feminism, the Thin-Ups series was born of her efforts to make a more direct feminist statement on the subject of gender politics in her work. Because of her own struggles with weight-and body-image issues, she decided that this subject might be an ideal one to approach-if only because, as the artist herself has stated, "negative body image is a battle that most women deal with." However, while she wanted the series to challenge the narrow beauty ideals historically imposed upon women, she also wanted to offer up the classic pin-up genre, with its range of often voluptuous bodies, as one that she admires as well as critiques. In other words, the artist claims, she sought for these works to ask women: "How do you find balance among your contradictory feelings about beauty?"

The series is comprised of a series of voluptuous women, dressed and posed in the style of vintage pin-ups from the 1940s and 'S0s; the women (including the artist herself) play dress-up in vintage girdles, aprons, and lingerie, reveling in the period's kitschy style even as their ironic body-language and tattoos give them away as contemporary. Clearly, Cawlfield and her models enjoy the aesthetics and accoutrements of the era and its iconic pin-ups girls-mostly because these women, few of whom fit contemporary magazines' beauty ideals, might seem unlikely candidates for cheesecake models, and performing as such gives them the feeling of broadening pre-existing roles as well as suggesting new ones for young women. But, whereas the source material to which Cawlfield is drawn-think the shocked-face-on-the-scale or stuffedinto-an-exercise-contraption pin-up of the I 950s-mocks women's vanity and struggles toward weight loss even as it demands both of them, her "thin-ups" are engaged in activities that instead demonstrate the degree to which her subjects refuse to connect their beauty to the status quo. The artist invites us to take playful pleasure in flouting the feminine convention that a beautiful woman is a supermodel-thin one, even as she suggests that these antiquated images of what earlier generations of feminists considered feminine "bondage" might instead be reinterpreted by a new generation as armor.

Indeed, Cawlfield's photography not only reinterprets the imagery but also the attitudes of the eras that she revisits. While the late 1940s and 'S0s are justifiably referred to by feminist scholars as the "decades of discontent" that led to a backlash in the form of the women's liberation movement, it is also just as easily held up as an era in which trailblazing women circumvented the "feminine mystique" that Betty Friedan famously documented as dominating this era. As historian Joanne Meyerowitz has written of Friedan's sweeping generalization of women's postwar experiences, "with The Feminine Mystique, Friedan gave a name and voice to housewives' discontent, but she also homogenized American women and simplified postwar ideology; she reinforced the stereotype that portrayed all postwar women as middle-class, domestic, and suburban, and she caricatured the popular ideology that she said had suppressed them [ .. .]. More generally, it seems, postwar culture was not as inextricably tied to the domestic ideal as Betty Friedan and some historians have implied."'

Indeed, Daniel Horowitz's recent biography of Friedan herself bolsters Meyerowitz's analysis. Horowitz reminds us that Friedan was, like many women, a victim of the mystique-a

wife and mother of three who, by her own account, had given up a fellowship and jobs for fear of not conforming to period ideals. However, he also reveals the little-known fact that she was during this same period also a labor activist and freelance journalist whose work openly critiqued male prejudice and discrimination. In other words, Friedan may have created a "persona of the suburban housewife [that] enabled her to talk about alienation and discrimination," but she herself found routes around the allegedly totalitarian mystique of which she wrote." While many might accuse Cawlfield of a kind of nostalgia in her reinvestigation of this period, the photographer dismisses such criticism: "People always ask me: 'If you could choose, which era would you live in?' I always emphatically answer 'Now!' If I lived in the 1950s, I couldn't be the woman that I am, recreating history and making it my own." However, she does look back to the postwar era to both mock the "mystique" that kept so many women in check and insinuate the presence of women who rebelled against it to create the women's liberation movement that followed.

When reminded of the breadth of the period's feminine identities, it should come as less of a surprise that Cawlfield is drawn to it for her own, explicitly feminist revisions.

Unsurprising, too, is her choice of another famous postwar "Betty," the legendary pin-up girl Bettie Page, as a frequent touchstone in her work. In the 'SOs,Bettie Page's career perhaps epitomized the schizophrenic allure of the pin-up. From girlie mag to girlie mag, she would assuage postwar fears of the independent woman by grinning girlishly in a ruffled bikini, yet turn up, riding crop in hand, as the leather-skirted, fetish-heeled manifestation of those same fears. Her brazen, over-the-top poses and pointedly light-hearted approach to performing as a pin-up served to expose the very construction of the genre; revealing both its artificiality and performative nature, as well as its potential as an expressive medium for the woman so represented. A great performer as well as a great beauty, Page's pin-up celebrity came from her ability to shift gears within a spectrum of extreme sexual roles, taking each on with hammy gusto that frequently crossed over

© Nicole Cawfield,SelfPortraitas a Pin-UpGirl/Photographer,2003, gelatin silver print. 20x 16"

into slapstick. In each calculated, controlled image of Page doled out to the public, she demonstrated that just when you thought you had a woman's desires and identity figured out, they would be scintillatingly thwarted at the next turn.

As such, Cawlfield approaches these historical images with a simultaneous dose of criticism and affection that seems to have emerged as a defining trait of the third wave-its typically postmodern refusal to accept either/or, and reservation of the right to claim both/and-which is often misunderstood and even criticized by feminists who earlier sought to demolish rather than reclaim such traditional feminine roles, as well as created work where the political statements were generally clear and direct. Nicole Cawlfield may be creating work that shares an affection for objects and imagery that many in the second wave had perhaps hoped their daughters would grow to revile, but she does not gravitate toward such subjects uncritically.

Indeed, Cawlfield's sneaky critique of the very images she restages to me exemplifies the resiliency of second-wave feminist ideas as much as the progressive new politics of the third wave. Many audiences will make justifiable connections between Cawlfield and similar projects by the groundbreaking Feminist Art Programs at Fresno State and CalArts-in this case, a cross between their stereotype-mocking "costume images" and hilarious but fierce Fresno "California Girl" pin-up group portrait."' Like both of these projects, Cawlfield uses popular feminine stereotypes to overturn them, and uses photography to essentially freeze a staged performance. However, Cawlfield adds a third-wave twist to its work in that, while recognizing the inadequacy of such roles to effectively represent women's complex experiences and vast potential, they also recognize the appeal of these same roles.

In this way, Cawlfield's photography resembles that of the role-playing photographer par excel/once, Cindy Sherman. Both women's work draws not only on the alluring familiarity of the pin-up as "confiscated" genre, but emphasizes the power of its seemingly innocent sources to manipulate and confuse the desire of both its subject and viewer. Openly playing with popular stereotypes of female sexuality inherent in the pin-up genre, both photographers highlight their constructed, as opposed to natural, qualities, thereby mocking such images' ability to fully define the subject. Sherman's work is also a relevant parallel to Cawlfield's to the degree that her work was among the first to challenge the increasingly-stringent feminism of the 1970s that women were finding as limiting as liberating. Sherman was certainly a woman of her time: growing up at precisely the moment that feminism's second wave exploded on the cultural scene, she sought to capture the rapid changes in sexual ideals that women her age had grown up with, from postwar prudishness to the sexual revolution. But her impetus to explore the stereotypes many of her contemporaries hoped to banish to history's dustbin was as rooted in pleasure as repulsion. As Sherman herself put it: "[As a child] I had these role models-women in films-and you would wear pointed bras and girdles and sleep with curlers in your hair. Then in college everything had to be natural-no makeup, no bras, no hair dyeing. So I had a love-hate relationship to the makeup and all the accoutrements of beauty because you were not supp~~;rd to like them. But I still like it and get pleasure from It.

To feminists used to identifying colleagues by their strident and unyielding politics in the 1970s, such statements must have seemed maddeningly open and perversely personal. But, as critic Craig Owens said of the reception of her work at the time, Sherman opened "herself to charges that she was an accomplice in her own objectification, reinforcing the image of the woman bound by the frame. This may be true; but while Sherman may pose as a pin-up, still she cannot be pinned down."" To paraphrase Rosalind Krauss' influential analysis of Sherman's work, the artist was one of the earliest contemporary artists to encourage viewers to "look under the hood" of popular images of women, rather than buying wholesale into the mythology they represented to either the culture industry or its feminist critics.

And, "flashy body work" may be a good place to start a discussion of both third-wave art and its relationship to feminist history. Because Cawlfield's work-unabashedly sexualized work that embraces popular culture-is precisely the type that most polarizes feminists who came of age in the secondand third waves, I feel that it is instructive in discussing the intergenerational tensions between feminists in the American art world today. But it seems to me that this small cross-section of young feminist art begins to, not only explain, but may perhaps start to repair some of the missed connections between third- and second-wave women: a point at whichthrough close readings of third-wave work-we might begin a kind of intergenerational legend for deciphering each others' culture.

On the one hand, I believe that Cawlfield's work-like that of many third-wave artists-is an open challenge to the fact that the second-wave's justified recognition of the misogyny in popular sexual imagery of women also gave way to an unfortunate chilling effect on feminist sexual expression. On the other hand, I also believe that Cawlfield's challenge is only among the most recent in a battle that feminist artists have been fighting since at least the mid-70s. If one can see beyond overly-simplistic assumptions of inherent sexism in the genres upon which she draws, one might begin to appreciate her appeal to third-wave feminists as well as her works' links to the second wave. Cawlfield's work launches a critique of the ways that the imagery she manipulates encourages women to internalize shame in their own body when it fails to measure up to its distorted reflection in popular culture-a critique indebted to the second wave. However, she adds to this critique of sexist pop culture a revealing look at its role in women's culture as well, where she well knows many compound but others confront that shame by choosing to scrutinize, appropriate, and recontextualize these images from movies, television, and magazines.

I would argue, like Peggy Phelan, that this ambivalence is a luxury afforded the third wave by their second-wave predecessors: a confident and complicated recognition of the ways in which women relate to and express their sexual selvesas well as their classed, raced, and even gendered selves-not only because the political and personal freedoms that the second wave ushered into the women's movement, but because of the plurality of this same legacy. Work like Cawlfield's may exist, as critic Laura Cottingham has argued, to serve the third-wave purpose of asking the questions "that were never asked, or were perhaps asked and then answered too quickly during the seventies."x Yet such work simultaneously speaks to a tradition of those who first began this line

of questioning, not to mention underscoring the breadth of feminist history that this dialogue reveals.

Maria Elena Buszek is a critic, curator, and assistant professor of art history at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her research and criticism have appeared in Art in America, Make, TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, and Woman's Art Journal. She is a/so a regular contributor to Review as well as the popular third-wave feminist 'zine Bust:The Voice of the New Girl Order. Dr. Buszek's f,rst book, Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, was published in spring 2006 by Duke University Press.

NOTES:

I Linda Nochlin, "Feminism and Art: Nine Views," Artforum 42, no.2 (October 2003): 141.

2 Phelan,"Feminism and Art: Nine Views," 149.

3 Linda Nochlin, "Feminism and Art: Nine Views," 141.

4 Phelan,"Feminism and Art: Nine Views," 149.

i Joanne Meyerowitz, "Introduction," in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, edited by Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994): 3, 8.

ii Daniel Horowitz, "Rethinking Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America," American Quarterly 48.1 ( 1996): 28.7 See Faith Wilding, "the FeminiseArt Programs ac Fresno and CalArcs, 1970-75,'' in Norma Broude and Mary Garrard, The Power of Feminist Art (New York:Abrams, 1994): 32-47;Wilding, By Our Own Hands: The Women Artists' Movement in Southern California, I 970-76 (Santa Monica, CA: Double X Press, 1977); and Judy Chicago, Beyond the Flower: My Life as a Woman Artist, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin Press, 1993).

iii Maria Lind, "Retracing the Steps of Cindy Sherman: Retaining the Element of Chance" ( 1995) (From artist's files at Metro Pictures.)

iv Craig Owens, "The Discourse of Ochers: Feminism and Postmodernism,'' in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster (Seattle: Bay Press, 1983): 75.

v Laura Cottingham, "What's so bad about 'em?" from Seeing Through the Seventies: Essays on Feminism and Art (Amsterdam: G & B Arts, 2000): 76.

© Nicole Cawfield, Thin-UpGirl Self Portrait,See SpotSit, 2005, gelatin silver print, 20x 16".

LOLA FLASH

[sur]passing is a series in progress consisting of larger than life color portraits that probe the impact skin pigmentation plays on black identity and consciousness. Primarily due to the melanin count of their skin: opportunities for light and dark-skinned blacks can differ enormously ranging from overt favoritism to extreme alienation. Kobena Mercer coins this process as pigmentocracy - based on skin-tone. This scandalous and often heart wrenching story line dates back to colonial America and it clearly perseveres today.

Within this context, it is quite apparent that European visual portrayal of black culture created a schism in which the visual representation of black women and black men was structured into a contrasting degradation. Much of this harsh differentiation originates from a racist patriarchal society, which continues to remain in power. For me and other fair-skinned women, one look in the mirror suffices to remember the desires of the white man to conquer black women during colonial America. In the same way that the slave masters raped the land, they raped their female slaves.These women were seen as mere chattel, not as individuals.

Eventually, due to this hybridization, some of the light-skinned and fine-featured female slaves were elevated from 'field nigger' to 'house nigger.' Their European features and pale color established a more palatable fantasy to satisfy the white supremacist desires and gaze. Having access to the "big house" enabled these servants to enjoy "easier" work, as well as other advantages but most importantly it created the beginnings of yet another divide between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks.

Since these times artists and their models have either promoted stereotypes or challenged black identity. In my case, the visual representation I illustrate blurs the invisible boundaries concerning both race and gender.

These significant constructions create a cathartic system that seeks to re-appropriate the visual representation of women and to disengage the stereotypical colonial imagery, which has left an indelible scar on black consciousness. The greatest revelation is that black women now own a spectrum of decision.

Lola Flash was born in the United States and is of African/Native American descent. She spent ten years in London where she regularly exhibited her work and attained her MA. Her work is included in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Most recently her images were featured in Nueva Luz published by En Foco. Flash is currently based in New York where she continues to teach and create. Her website is www.lolaflash.com.

© Lola Flash, Shigi,2005, digital c-print. 60x48".

opposite page: © Lola Flash, Sandra,2005, digital c-print. 60x48".

CHARISE ISIS

For the last twelve years, I have worked on and off in the world of exotic dance (strip clubs). It is a world harshly judged by the mainstream and generally negatively depicted .by the media. Strippers are often viewed as dysfunctional people on the fringe of society.

Throughout my career as a dancer, I have come to know some very powerful and creative women. I have witnessed deeply moving and healing experiences, and I have seen a great deal of beauty and strength within this industry.

I began photographing the women that I work with three years ago. At first, I wondered if I should photograph every aspect of this world, including the stereotypical "bad stuff" (exploited women with low self esteem), but I realized that I do not view the dancers in this way. Dysfunction exists within the world of exotic dance as it does in every aspect of our society, however it is not the negative things that stay with me, but rather the humanity that constantly disrobes itself alongside the women.

I have therefore chosen to focus my lens on the performance aspect of this world where women express so much -dressing and undressing their bodies, dressing and undressing their souls.

The women I work with are extremely supportive of my work. They are inspired by my photographs and I am honored by their trust.

opposite page:© Charise lsis,Joie,2002, gelatin silver print, I 3x9 1'2". this page: © Charise Isis, Narcisuss,2003, gelatine silver print, 6¥4x 12".

this page: © Charise Isis.Devi/ Girl,2002, gelatin silver print, 8 /.x 12'/.". opposite page: © Charise Isis, Pole Mistress, 2003. gelatin silver print, 121/.x l 0".

Born in the United States, and raised in New Zealand, Charise Isis returned to the States at 20 to study acting in NYC.As a "struggling artist," she supported herself as a bartender and later a close friend introduced her to the world of exotic dance. Dancing for Isis became not only a great source of income, but also a wonderful platform for expressing her creativity. She also began exploring different visual media including painting, sculpture, and performance art before discovering her talent for photography. A~er having a son, she moved to Woodstock, NY, where she continued to supplement income dancing and began studying photography at Ulster Community College. Having access to an abundance af interesting and beautiful women at her work, she naturally began photographing them. Since then Isis has compiled more than sixty images along with interviews. A book of her work, entitled American Stripper will be published in spring 2007 by Five Ties Publishing. Isis has shown her work in exhibition5 across New York, at the Kleinart James Gallery, MK Gallery in Brooklyn, the Stepping Stone Gallery in Huntington, the State University Plaza Gallery in Albany, Silent Gallery Space, and Backstage Productions in Kingston, and at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. To learn more, visit www.isisimages.net.

noted books

All books listed are available at CPW's library, which is open to the public, Wed -Sun, 12 -S pm and by appointment.

In Character: Actors Acting, directed and photographed by Howard Schatz, project director and senior editor Beverly J. Ornstein, foreword by Roger Ebert, Bulfinch Press,NYC, 2006.

Jesus and the Cherries, photographs by Jessica Backhaus, essays by Monika Rydiger and Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg; 2005.

La Vida Brinca: A Book of Tragaluz Photographs by Bill Wittliff, essays by Elizabeth Ferrer & Stephen Harrigan, The University of Texas Press.Austin, TX, 2006.

Paul Strand: Aperture Masters of Photography #I, photographs by Paul Strand, introductory essay by Mark Haworth-Booth, curator of photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Aperture, NYC, 1987. Donated by Jeff Milstein

Photographs by David Shekwan, introduction by T.M. Amick, texts by Paul Sand and Maha Sweiss. The Central Printing Press Ltd, Hong Kong, China, 2005.

Rare Creatures, photographs by Howard Schatz,senior editor and project director Beverly J.Ornstein, The Wonderland Press, NYC, 2002. Donated by Jeff Milstein.

The Reverend, photographs by James Perry Walker, foreword by Will D. Campbell, The University Press of Mississippi, 2006.

Scotlandfuturebog, photographs by Nicholas Kahn & Richard Selesnick, story by Ben Marcus, Aperture Foundation, NYC, 2002.

Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, photograph·s by Maggie Humm, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2006.

Sudan: The Land and the People, photographs by Michael Freeman, essaysby Timothy Carney and Victoria Butler, forward by Jimmy Carter, Marquand Books in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 2005.

Texas Coast, photographs by Laurence Parent, text by Joe Nick Patoski, University of Texas Press,Austin, TX, 2005.

Where We Find Ourselves, photographs by Justin Kimball, introduction by Richard B. Woodward, Center for American Places,Inc., Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2006.

On the Sixth Day Photographs by Alessandra Sanguinetti with essay by Robert Blake, Published by Nazraeli Press, 2005. Hardcover, 12 x 13", 80 pages, 61 four-color plates.

On the Sixth Day features new work by Alessandra Sanguinetti, best known for her series, The Adventures of Gui/le and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams. Sanguinetti's exploration of the relationship between small independent farmers and their animals in rural Argentina includes 61 beautiful color photographs. The stark black linen cover with a brillian square color image inlaid in the center belies Sanguinetti's deep sensitivity and warmth to her subject.

In 1996, before prior to her work with Guille and Belinda, Alessandra Sanguinetti began photographing an area in Buenos Aires where humans and animals share a symbiotic relationship. These images, taken by roadsides, in fields, and in the woods of the Partido de Guido, reveal how the animal and human worlds coexist. and how that realtionship has in Sanguentti's words " resulted in a language of traditions that persist over the years, where the cycle of life and death is present everyday."

On the Sixth Day begins by showing these animals in a portrait-like language.The initial images each present the animal alone, isolated in its environment, devoid of human presence. In bringing her camera down to ground level, Sanguinetti lets the viewer enter the personal space of these animals.This singular and intimate focus forces the viewer to consider these animals on an individual and personal level. In addition, with her use of color and selected focus, each animal expresses a very different personality. As the book progresses, Sanguinetti opens her compositions to include the presence of small independent farmers. The relationship between man and animal becomes more apparent as we begin to see these animals primarily as a source of sustenance. Her focus shifts to show a broader representation of the environment, revealing the ways in which animals and humans interact within the land and each other. In one photograph, a farmer milks a cow while in the next a lamb feeds its baby as a farmer reaches in to assist.

As the human presence in Sanguinetti's images becomes more and more dominant, the animals start to lose the sense of personal identity seen earlier and the viewer begins to see the darker, less idealized bucolic side of the farming life. Images of bloody hands and unborn baby cows still in their placentas suggest to the reader that this is not a story of people and their pets, rather one of death and survival. In the end the images remain both personal and brutal. They present an honest and truthful portrayal of the give and take that is necessary for life to continue within this small farming community.

- Jodi Rosenblatt, 2006

IN LIGHT KELLICONNELL

This work represents an autobiographical questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships. Polarities such as the masculine and feminine psyche, the irrational and rational self, the exterior and interior self, and the motivated and resigned self are portrayed.

The images are created by combining multiple negatives of the same model, which are then scanned and manipulated in Photoshop.Although these images are constructed, the stories they infer about two people seen laughing, making-out, or quarreling, resonate with truth. These photographs are re-enactments of private relationships that I have personally experienced, witnessed in public, or watched on television. By digitally creating an image that is a composite of multiples of the same model and setting, the self is exposed not as a solidified being in reality, but rather, as a representation of social and interior investigations that happen within the mind and the multiplicity inherent in every individual.

The importance of these images lies in the fact that the interior dilemmas are portrayed as an external object -a photograph. I am interested not only in what the subject matter says about myself, but also what the viewers' response to these images says about their own identities and social constructs.

Kelli Connell received her MFA from Texas Woman's University in 2003 and now works as an Assistant Professor of Photography at Youngstown State University in Ohio. Connell's work has been exhibited across the US at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Photo-Eye Gallery in Santa Fe, Society for Contemporary Photography in Kansas City, and Diverse Works in Houston. Her photographs are included in numerous collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Connel/'s work was recently featured in: MP3: Midwest Photographers' Publication Project co-published by Aperture and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, as well as Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography by Phaidon. Her work is represented by Yossi Milo Gallery in NYC, Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis, and Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas. Connell will be featured in the CPW exhibition Kiss & Tell, curated by Kate Menconeri in January 2007.

IN LIGHTartists are selected from the CPW's Artist Registry - an archive of contemporary photography, mixed media, and digital imagery. It provides a bridge between artists, curators, collectors, educators, and CPW, making contemporary work easy to access - by appointment - Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5pm.

© Kelli Connell, ConvertabileKiss,2005, 30x40", digital C-print.

this page:© Graciela Fuentes.video still from Saida,Asra, 2006, single channel video. opposite page: © Jane Hammond, Face Facts, 2005, selenium toned gelatin silver print, 91 / 1 x 12".

ELIZABETHLINE

Editors• Note: Passionate Attitudes was orginiolly presented as on exhibition at the Center for Photography at Woodstock from November I IDecember 23, 2006. The exhibition included o live poetry reading by Noel Jones and Louro EJ Moron. For more information on the exhibition, please visit http:Ilwww.cpw.org/ exhibitions/ 2006 / passionate _herrerolpossionote !pages/gallery _passionate .htm I

At the time I began conceiving ideas for Passionate Attitudes, I was reading The Invention of Hysteria, by Georges DidiHuberman. I was horrified, moved, and fascinated by the photographs of "hysterical" women in French asylums in the 19th century. Who were these women? What did they think and feel? While it is obvious from Didi-Huberman's arguments they were coerced and manipulated by the men behind the cameras, did this bizarre relationship also serve as an outlet for creativity? Passionate Attitudes evolved as a counterargument and instead of the hideous acts that provoked the "attitudes passionelles" of 19th century France, the contemporary women artists in this show use a self directed gaze and self generated

©

content to create their own performance and expressions in the presence of the camera and audience.As a whole, Passionate Attitudes investigates the creative lives of emerging and mid-career women artists who are exploring their personal environments, histories, and imaginations with photographs, video, and writing, and reveals a new conversation about the role of the creative woman working in contemporary society.

Artists Jen Davis, Kanako Sasaki, and Susanne Neunhoeffer work with personal documentary in domestic settings and the physical landscape, examining the role of the self within culture and society. Jen Davis' rich, painterly color photographs explore issues of personal body image through self-portraits taken in familiar settings in and around her home. (editors' note - Davis'workcanbe seen on pages4-7) By contrast, Kanako Sasaki's self-portraits portray the feelings of a displaced "wanderer", attempting to find balance in the "floating" world. Susanne Neunhoeffer is interested in a representation of the self over time. Her installation of 135 8x IO" gelatin silver prints represents subtle changes in her image over a period of five years. In seeking a deeper self-knowledge, these artists simultaneously speak to the situations of many women in our culture.

Other work such as that by artist Jane Hammond and Rebecca Horne, create environments and histories commingled with memory, personal experience, and fictional characters. Jane Hammond and Rebecca Horne are both interested in the manipulation of facts, but in surprisingly different ways. Each of Jane Hammond's gelatin silver prints are created from carefully created composite negative. The negative contains found vernacular photographs and photographs from Hammond's own family albums. Rebecca Horne documents constructed domestic settings with altered household objects. Working in a style, similar to Hammond and Horne, Rachel Mackow chooses to remain behind the camera, intent on leaving as little trace as possible in her landscape-based work. (continuedon page36)

KanakoSasaki,YellowLeotard,2003, Chromogenic print, I 6x20".

© Susanne Neunhoeffer, detail -twelve selected self portraits from a site-specific installation of 135 Sx IO" gelatin silver print

Xaviera Simmons, Graciela Fuentes, and Cornelia Hediger investigate the psychology of gender through the use of portraiture that ranges from humorous and theatrical, to the mysterious. Xaviera Simmons' work is influenced by performance, film, and popular culture; while Cornelia Hediger's work, also performance-based, more closely resembles a carefully staged play, with Hediger playing multiple characters within one image. Graciela Fuentes captures a young girl performing for her camera at an Egyptian wedding, illustrating the complexities of performance, documentation, and self. Her work brings together concerns explored by all of the artists in Passionate Attitudes.

In addition to the photographs and video, writing by poets Laura EJ Moran {http://www.lauraejmoran.com) and Noel Jones are included in the exhibition of the show to contribute an integral component to the exhibition. Their work enhances the themes presented in the visual artwork and speaks to the vulnerability and strength of the human spirit.

The artists in PassionateAttitudes open a fresh dialogue about the complex issues facing creative women today and confront individual and shared curiosity, sensitivity, desire, and fear. I hope the dialogue between these works investigates and challenges convention, and creates accessible and meaningful conversation between the artists and the public. I am inspired by the strength, courage, and vulnerability of the artists whose work is included in this exhibition. Each one of them has touched my life.

-Elizabeth Line, 2006

"But when she really dances--tight black against bare pine boards, against the blank wall, love, art, hunger --all her weight falls hard to her body."

--excerpt from Rich Lady Stealing Lipstick, Laura EJ Moran

" you couldn't catch her, slick snake charmer, dislocated girl in a blade box, skippin' cross a bed of coals like it was a dock and she was waving au revoir to the Queen herself."

--excerpt from Live Bait, by Laura EJ Moran

"One day a bird flew into a window. There on the concrete, I recognized his stunned gaze mirroring the sky. He did not struggle when I took him in. I watch him sleep now, wings tucked neatly. My hand over his breastbone, each beat, each rise and fall, any tiny anchor."

--excerpt from Letter to Anchorage by Noel Jones

"So we lay there, heads pointed south, simultaneously in our solitudes, wrapping our mouths around the words over and over again, like cygnets unbending wet joints for the hundredth time, 'I'm getting out of here."' excerpt from Migration by Noel Jones

© Rachel Mackow. GrasslandsandSky,TheBadlands,SouthDakota,June 2000, ( diptych), gelatin silver print, Sx l-41'1".

© Cornelia Hediger, Doppelganger/106, 2006, C-prints on handmade paper, 3x3".

Elizabeth Line is an independentcurator,artist, and writer based in New York.Her project,The Very Rich Hours, a brief, performative exhibitionorganizedin an alternativespace in lower Manhattan, was reviewedin issue #65 of Contemporary magazine in 2004. She works full time with the physicallydisabledat the Matheny ArtsAccessProgramin Peapack,NewJersey.

Jen Davis (see artist'sbio on page 5)

Graciela Fuentes participated in the Whitney Museum'sIndependentStudy Programin 2005-06, a~er earning her MFA from New York Universityin 2005. Fuentesis the recipient of a National Councilfor the Arts (CONACULTA)grant and the SteinhardtSchool'sSamuelEshborn ServiceAward.Her video work has been screened in exhibitionsaround the globe at venues includingthe Queens Museum of Art, Museo de LasAmericasin Puerto Rico,Galeria Sala Maior in Portugal,CorcoranGallery in WashingtonDC, the Museum of Modern Art Mexico City,Exit Art in NYC, El Museo de/ Barrio in NYC, and the San FranciscoArt Institute.

Jane Hammond holds a MFA from the UniversityofWisconsin at Madison.Her artwork has been in over 150 exhibitionsin over a dozen countriesincludingthose at the TucsonMuseum of Art, the Detroit Instituteof Art, Exit Art, and LuhringAugustinein NYC. Her work residesin the collectionsof over two-dozenmuseums includingthe Art Institute of Chicago,the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and SFMOMA.She was an Artist-in-Residence at SkowheganSchool of Painting and Sculpture,a Yaddo Fellow,and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts IndividualFellowship.Her work has been featured in numerousinternationalpublicationsand is representedby Ga/erieLelongin NYC.

Cornelia Hediger earned both her BFAand MFA from Mason GrossSchoolof the Arts at RutgersUniversity.Her imagery has been presented in exhibitionsat PS122 Gallery in NYC,the InternationalCenter of Photographyin NYC,Maryland Institute Collegeof Art in Baltimore, RutgersUniversityin New Brunswick,and the MassachusettsCollegeof Art Additionly Hedigerhas exhibited abroad at the Gallery Del MeseFischerin Switzerlandand Umilight9 Gallery in Halifax, Canada.

Rebecca Horne earned her MFA from Mason GrossSchoolof the Arts at RutgersUniversityShe has been in exhibitionsat PS122 in NYC, IO I Galleryin Houston,Perogi2000 in Brooklyn,Margaret BodellGalleryin NYC, Recontres/nternationa/esde la Photographiein France,Photo Metro Gallery in San Francisco,Wal/spaceGallery in NYC, and BeutlerKunzi Stutz in Switzerland.She was an exhibition finalist for the 1999 festivalprize at RecontresInternationalsde la Photographiein France. For more see www.galleryartist.com/horne.

Rachel Mackow holds a a BFAfrom the Mason GrossSchoolof the Arts at RutgersUniversity.She is a photographerand historian whose work traces life in rural and urban landscapes.Her photographshave been shown at the National Ubrary in Havana, the Queens Museum, and the KellyWriter's House at the Universityof Pennsylvania.Her work was publishedin Harper's magazine earlierthis year.Her current project,The Sourland Mountain,is a portrait of the environmentin which she livesand works:a secondgrowth forest in Central NewJersey.Her websiteis www.palaceofculture.org.

Susanne Neunhoeffer graduated in 2000 from the Documentary and Photojournalismprogram at the International Center of Photography.Her work has been shownin NewYork,Mexico,and Franceat venuesincludingPS122 and the InternationalCenterof Photography in NYC, Rencontresinternationa/esde la Photographiein France,and Fotoseptiembrein Mexico City and Veracruz,Mexico.Most recentlyshe participated in the ffrst edition of /es lndependances,an independentptJotographers'festival in Enghien-les-Bains,near Parisand in 2005 was publishedin Newsweek Her photographsare included in severalprivate and institutionalcollectionsin North America and Europe.For more visit http://neunhoeffer.com.

Kanako Sasaki earned her MFA from the SchoolofVisua/Arts in 2004. She was listed on PDN's 30 Photographersto Watch and received Magenta's Emerging PhotographersBook and Exhibition prize in 2006. Sasaki is also a 2004 Golden Ught Award recipient for Personal Documentary.She has exhibitedin Japan,Canada,the UK, China,Austria,and the US at such venuesas the Raku Gallery at Kyoto Designand Art Universityand the SVAGallery.Kanako has participated in artist residenciesat the Ezoe Foundationin Japan,BundeskanzleramtKunst in Austria,and UghtWork in Syracuse,NY. She is currentlystudyingat the RoyalCollegeof Art in London.Her websiteis www.kanakosasaki.com.

Xaviera Simmons participated in the Whitney Museum IndependentStudyProgramand earned her BFAin 2004 from Bard College.She has shown her work at Art In Generalin NYC, RealArt Ways in Hartford, Saatchi and Saatchiin NYC,the StudioMuseum in Harlem,Whitney Museum ISPOpen Studioin NYC, and at Takt Kuntsprojectraumin Berlin,Germany.Simmonswas a guest lecturerat New York Universityand the StudioMuseum in Harlem. She was an artist-in-residencehere at CPW in 2006, the Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learningin 2005, and will be a residentwith the Lower Manhattan Cultural Councilin 2007.

© Rebecca Horne, Untitled,(diptych) 2006, Chromogenic print, each print 20x24".

now,

Representing a range of formal practices, from straight documentary to staged and constructed narratives, the photographers chosen this year surpass the basic requirements of creating resolved and visually refined photographs. With these images, they exhibit unique visions informed by their interests and concerns as human beings. In reviewing the selected imagemakers as a group, it was evident that they have explored fundamental questions of humanity; examining the individual, the environment, the economy, nature, and ultimately, the impact of our modern world on the human spirit.

-Dana Faconti,

2006 publisher & editor, Blind Spot

CAITLIN ATKINSON

MARY FARM I LANT

MICHAEL MERGEN

ANNA NEIGHBOR

SHAWN RECORDS BRIAN ULRICH

CHAPTERS

A few nights ago, I locked myself out of my apartment for the third time this year. While I sat trying to decide what to do, I was overwhelmed with the thought that my life seems composed of one mistake after another; that I am living through a seemingly endless series of disappointments. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get it right.

Whether it is an awkward public interaction, unreal crisis, or moment of social disconnection, ordinary life is full of abrupt occurrences that create discomfort and isolation. It is often shocking and painful to discover how unsympathetic and harsh the world can be when we fail.The consequences of our transgressions, however small, leave us feeling inept and alone.

The photographs I create are all constructed scenes inspired by my own encounters with fear and failure. My interest lies in these breakdowns of everyday life and the subsequent relationship with defeat. The sad humor and vulnerability in the situations I stage allow viewers to identify with the character portrayed. Although I use myself in the pictures, they are not strictly self-portraits. In exposing my own shame and seclusion, I am giving name to the anxiety that plagues us all.The images serve not simply as windows into embarrassment, but as representations of undisguised human nature.

Caitlin Atkinson lives and works in San Francisco, CA. She received a BFA from the California College of Arts. She has exhibited at and represented by Foley Gallery in NYC, and at Fi~y Crows Gallery, SF Camerawork, Southern Exposure, and Soho Photo Gallery. In 2004 she was awarded the James D. Phelan Art Award in Photography. To view more of Caitlin's work visit www.caitlinatkinson.net.

© Caitlin Atkinson, Chapter8, August2002, C•print, 24x20", CourtesyFoleyGallery,NYC.

© Caitlin Atkinson, Chapter5, April 2004, C-print, 30x-40", CourtesyFoleyGallery,NYC.

© Caitlin Atkinson, Chapter I I, December2003, C-prim, 30x-40", CourtesyFoleyGallery,NYC.

COLUMBUS HOSPITAL

Many hospitals are dying as a result of an insidious disease they cannot cure: a "profit plague" that continues to devastate medical institutions all over the country. These photographs are from a series entitled Columbus Hospital and were taken in the empty space of the former Chicago hospital, which was closed to make way for luxury condominiums. Having worked there for 14 years as a nurse, I am intimately familiar with Columbus. As a photographer, I want to evoke the hospital's past while recording the space at this moment of transition. The richness of my experience at Columbus becomes more vague with the passage of time as my explorations of the hospital are superimposed over fading memories.

Although these images are of only one hospital, they serve to describe a pervasive change in the state of health care today. These images are also a record of the displacement of the middle class, as this place meant to serve the everyman makes way for places of the elite.

© Mary Farmilant, Room I 107:ColumbusHospital,2004, archival inkjet print, 30x30".

© Mary Farmilant, Surgery:ColumbusHospital.2005, archival inkjet print, 30x30".

Mary Farmilant received both her BA and MFA from Columbia College. She has exhibited in galleries in Georgia, Maine, New York, and in Illinois. Her work can be found in the collections of private individuals as well as Columbia College and YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. A book of her photography, MEMENTOS,was recently published by Columbia College Press in 2006. You can see more of her work at www.maryfarmilant.com.

PHILADELPHIA NAVAL SHIPYARD

Living in Philadelphia, it is hard not to be interested in the historic Navy Yard. When I gained access to four of the buildings, I was in awe of what I found. Like an archaeologist exploring ruins, I meticulously searched each building, looking for photographs that captured the signs of a fading human presence: torn bits of the American flag, words scrawled across a white board and traces of paint that showed where furniture once stood, now all long abandoned. The pictures are ghostly and lonely, alluding to the life this great military base once had.

© Mike Mergen. PhiladelphiaNaval Shipyard#48. 2005, Pigment print, I 2x 12".

Mike Mergan is a graduate of RIT and a current resident of Philadelphia,PA where he works as an affiliate member of the Center for EmergingVisualArtists. He has exhibited his work extensively in Philadelphiaand the surrounding areas. His work is in several private collectionsas well as that of Urban Outfitters Inc. More of his work can be found on his website is www.mergenphotography.com.

© Mike Mergen, PhiladelphiaNaval Shipyard#I 38, 2005, Pigmentprint, I 2x 12"

TRACKING

Photographed deep in the woods of parks and preserves, these are images of areas heavily trafficked by animals, primarily deer, that reveal the imprint of their use. The continuous working of the land leaves sometimes subtle and sometimes quite distinctive markings. Simultaneously beautiful and unsettling, these traces run through the images as an undercurrent in what upon first impression might appear to be straightforward landscape photographs. The perspective of the camera and large size of the photographs place the viewer in the center of the charged spaces, creating a quiet sense of intrusion and trespassing as they stand in the space of an unknown, absent occupier.

Anna Neighbor received her MFA at Tyler School of Art in 2006 and continues to reside in Philadelphia, PA. She has shown her work at galleries in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. She has received fellowships from Temple University and SUNY Buffalo, and was featured in Art Matters in 2005.

© Anna Neighbor, Tracking(06), 2005, archival digital print, 43x53".

© Anna Neighbor, Tracking(07), 2004, archival digital print, 43x53"

Photography, for me, is an act of paying attention, responding, and manipulating context. Ultimately, I photograph small things that hint at larger ideas - moments, objects, relationships, gestures; the details of everyday living that, when put into another context, take on weight. This approach has resulted in several different series.

These particular photographs come from an extended series in progress, at a loss, which explores the way that we, as a culture, cling to an idealized view of the natural world while maintaining our distance.The series explores how we look at nature, and the gap between what we're looking for and what we find. These photographs aren't about drawing the line between natural and artificial, but instead, take a step back and ask why the distinction matters. What is it that we're really hoping to find in nature if not some greater insight into ourselves?

Shawn Records receivedhis MFA from Syracuse Universityin 2003 and now lives in Portland,OR. Recordshas been in group exhibitions in Maryland,New York,and Washington.He was featured in his f,rst solo show at Blue Sky Galleryin Oregon in 2003. His work can also be found in the collectionsof PortlandArt Museum, BoiseArt Museum, and BoiseVisualChronicle.To learn more about Shawn Records,visit www.shawnrecords.org

from L-R: © Shawn Records, Untitled (Christmas),2004, 18x22~i"; Untitled(CiceroSwamp), 2002, 22 1/ixlS"; Untitled (yearling),2001, 18x221 / 2"; all images are Chromogenic prints.

© Brian Ulrich, Indianapolis,Indiana, 2004, Lighcjet C-print, 40x50".

COPIA

In 200 I citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project, a direct response to that advice, is a long-term photographic examination of the excesses of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live. Copia explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism and the roles we play in our own self-destruction, over-consumption, ant:1marketing and advertising manipulation. By scrutinizing these rituals, I hope that viewers will evaluate the i~creasing complexities of the modern world and their own role within it.

Since we ultimately see ourselves in these images, I hope to elicit compassion and empathy for those depicted by creating formal images that are elegant and beautiful. Shooting candidly with a medium-format camera outfitted with a waist-level viewfinder and available light, I can capture lost excitement and overwhelmed, subsumed moments, while remaining unnoticed myself. The photographs allow the viewer to stop and notice familiar places and things from a distanced perspective.

Brian Ulrich lives in Chicago where he teaches photography and Web Design at Columbia College. His work is in numerous collections and he has exhibited nationally as well as in France and Germany. Brian is a frequent contributor to the magazine Ad busters and has also worked for The New York Times Magazine, New York Times Style, and Wired among others. He is currently represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago and was recently featured in: MP3: Midwest Photographers' Publication Project co-published by Aperture and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. To view more of Brian Ulrich's work visit www.notifbutwhen.com.

© Brian Ulrich, Lyndhurst,Ohio,2004, UghcjetC-print. 40x50".

The Associationof International PhotographyArt Dealers(AIPAD)presents The PhotographyShow 07

Now in its 27th year,The PhotographyShow2007 will includemore than ninety of the finest dealers in fine art photographyfeaturing the earliestto the most contemporaryimages.

The Photography Show 07

7th Regiment Armory Park Avenue and 67th Street, New York, NY

To sign up for email updates regarding The Photography Show 2007 and other AIPAD events, go to www.aipad.com and click on Contact.

AIPAD. 1767 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036 T 202.985,0105 E info(2>aipad.com

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The Association of International Photography Art Dealers