Some of the photographs in Charlotte Jansen’s new book will already be intensely familiar — perhaps so much so that they prompt an adverse reaction. Charlotte was frustrated by one particular image that she saw reproduced everywhere from the New York Times to Tumblr: Mayan Toledano’s photo of a girl face down on a bed wearing “Feminist” underwear, her back covered in metallic stickers. But it wasn’t the image itself that she was bothered by. Photographs of women, by women, Charlotte says, are often talked about in mainstream media only in relation to the male gaze. Girl on Girl questions how we should look at women by presenting work by 40 diverse female photographers from 17 countries. The images are accompanied by interviews with each artist, arguing that “photographs of women are far more provocative and complicated than [everyday] viewing circumstances prescribe.”
“I wanted to embrace all kinds of photographs of women by women to bring them together — not to show how they are similar but to present how photographs of women are not always about feminism and femininity (although some, of course, are),” Charlotte says. “We are so used to seeing images now in juxtaposition, that all photographs of women — static and silent — even when they’re made for different purposes and audiences, are forced into dialogue with each other.” Artists in Girl on Girl are as disparate as Toledano, Petra Collins, Zanele Muholi, Deanna Templeton, Izumi Miyazaki, and Lalla Essaydi. Together, they encourage not just a fresh perspective on their own photos, but the ones we see every day.
‘Girl on Girl’ ($29.95) is out today via Laurence King.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Images courtesy of Laurence King