The first major American museum exhibition of Francesca Woodman’s work in 25 years, had its debut two months ago at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where it remained until Feb. the 20th 2012. The show, which featured 176 vintage photographs along with 5 videos, will open tomorrow, March the 16th at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Spanning the breadth of her production, the exhibition includes more than 120 vintage photographs, artist books, and a selection of recently discovered and rarely seen short videos, presenting a historical reconsideration of  Woodman’s brief but extraordinary career. Francesca Woodman committed suicide at the age of 22, jumping from a window of her Manhattan loft. She had only about five years of photography behind her, much of it done as a student. Working in black and white, she frequently took self-portraits or depicted other young women, often nude. Her figures are only partly visible or blurry, as if trying to escape the frame. Even if quite small,(about 5 by 5 inches), Woodman’s haunting photographs have drawn admirers for decades. She represents a remarkably rich and singular exploration of the human body in space and of the genre of self-portraiture in particular. Her interest was in female subjectivity, conceptual vision and practice, and photography’s relationship to both literature and art. Born into a family of artists, Woodman enrolled at the famous Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1975 where she started being considered an accomplished artist with a mature with a focused approach to photography. During her time at RISD, she spent a year in Rome, a place she had visited as a child, and which proved to be a source of inspiration. After her degree, she moved to New York, where she started experimenting with fashion photography, engaging in the age-old artist’s struggle to reconcile making art and making a living. Woodman’s favourite subject was herself. From the very first time she picked up a camera, she used it to self-portraiture. Using a square-format camera, she photographed her body in a variety of spaces, decaying and decrepit interiors, particularly the layered surfaces of walls covered with graffiti or peeling wallpapers. The evanescent body appeared and disappeared behind objects,  cupboards or cabinets. She camouflaged against walls or dissolved into a blur of movement. She frequently included objects, gloves, mirrors, shells, eels, investing them with a symbolic charge, and  making allusions. Woodman, often considered as a feminist hero, produced more than 800 different images in her lifetime. She was subject and object, at the same time. She utilized the female body to develop her own self-knowledge. Her body was the mean with which she could dialogue with herself.

The Guggenheim exhibition will include two of her artist books, diaristic collages of her own photographs and writings, definitely a must-see.

http://www.guggenheim.org

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