Exhibition Information

Yousuf Karsh, Audrey Hepburn
1956 Gelatin silver Print & Diasec 59.5cm.x48cm

Barbara Morgan, Martha Graham
1940 Gelatin Silver Print 35.56cmx46.99cm

Alexander Rodechenko, GirlwithLeica
printed 1994 gelatin silver print mounted on handmade archival paper 43.18cmx35.56 cm

Kim Young-man, Jeonbuk Gochang
1974 gelatin silver print 27cmx40cm

			<I shot HER>

'If God had not created woman's flesh, I would never have been a painter.”


These were the words of August Renoir (1841-1919), who spent his life painting vivid and adorable Parisiennes with bright brush strokes. Women, with nature, has become a source of inspiration for artists throughout history, and the female form expressed in the most idealized femininity has been an integral part of western art. Even though women in works of art have gradually evolved to independent subjects, each with her own identity, we still find women portrayed diversely, as mythical goddesses, mother, an artist’s muse, movie stars, client or patron, or the artist herself. 


If so, based on the universal attribute of photography which captures the subject in its existence, how have photographers since the 20th century looked at contemporary living women and captured them with his or her camera?


<I shot HER>


Mother, remembering you… The view of a mother’s back going to the market, walking down a newly constructed road in the 1970’s with a homegrown chicken on her shoulder and a heavy bundle on her head (Nyungman Kim). Face of an aged mother burying herself in the newspaper with reading glasses as if she has found a new world through the letters she learned belatedly in her 50s (Alexander Rodchenko).


Twinkle Twinkle Movie Stars.... Marilyn Monroe, the ill-fated star, standing in front of Bert Stern’s camera to pose for fashion magazine just six weeks before her suicide. Hanyong Kim’s 1970’s Korean movie stars showing graceful charm with natural beauty before the days of plastic surgery.


Female artists taken by Female Photographer… Imogen Cunningham who captured contemporary female painter Frida Kahlo’s hardy spirit in a photo by connecting with her through the camera lens. Barbara Morgan captures and interprets the sublime facial expression of Martha Graham, Time Magazine's “Dancer of the Century,” in motion.


Contemporary women, heading above and beyond… Barbara Kruger expresses critical view of mass media and the society by juxtaposing a woman’s eyes, which are extremely closed-up, with text. Shirin Neshat from Iran continues her work in promoting Muslim women’s rights and self-worth with the piece which shows the expressionless face of a Muslim woman wearing a Hijab.

 

A great Russian writer, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy(1828-1910) said, "Woman, you see, is an object of such a kind that study it as much as you will, it is always quite new.” Various images of women expressed in artworks throughout history embody many factors such as the ethical values and directivity of the society as well as the artist’s personal aesthetic conviction and emotional expression. <I shot HER> Looking at women in the past recorded as photography by these twenty-five artists, Art Space J hopes this exhibition will inspire you to consider the current state of contemporary women and how it has changed over the years.