Lesbians Seeing Lesbians: Building Community in Early Feminist Photography is a new exhibition at the Leslie/Lohman Gallery in New York highlighting feminist photo pioneers who were active during the Stonewall era - Tee Corinne, JEB and Cathy Cade. Work by photographers known for capturing contemporary lesbian life, including Cass Bird and Catherine Opie, will also be featured.
Resisting the traditional heterosexist objectification of the female body, early lesbian photographers such as Tee Corinne, JEB and Cathy Cade reworked how women were represented, according to a release about the exhibition. The new way in which the artists depicted women stressed not only the erotic allure of the female form, but its capacity to build, nurture and resist. They gave widespread visibility to a new social ideal, born of that defining lesbian feminist notion that asked, "Since women are no longer defined as accessories to men, what can, and should, a feminist society be?"
The radical authenticity of the work of these three artists empowered lesbians with visibility, fostered the emergence of their own unique cultural identity and redirected their revolt against patriarchy through photography by reassessing the iconography of the female body and genuinely depicting the building of a community.
The addition of work by contemporary lesbian photographers Catherine Opie and Cass Bird pays tribute to those pioneering women as it engages and reworks their founding vision in contemporary lesbian life. The exhibition also includes key documents of the lesbian feminist and lesbian separatist movements.
This exhibition runs from September 14, 2011 to October 22, 2011 at the Leslie/Lohman Gallery in New York. On September 15 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm, there will be a panel discussion featuring JEB and Cathy Cade, moderated by exhibition curators Ilana Eliot, Julia Haas and Jonathan David Katz. Get more information on the show and events on the Leslie/Lohman Gallery website.
Follow SheWired on Twitter!
Follow SheWired on Facebok!
