Paris Photo continues its commitment to women in photography with Elles x Paris Photo, a program initiated with the Ministry of Culture in 2018 and supported by Kering | Women In Motion. This year, Nathalie Herschdorfer is showing us a selection of works that highlight the contribution of women to the history of the medium.
While the works of creators are spread across all artistic fields, the history of art has been written with a primary focus on male figures, eclipsing the contributions of many women. Today, more and more books and exhibitions point the finger at this discrimination against women by valuing their artistic works. Initiated in 2018 at Paris Photo, the Elles x Paris Photo course fights against this process of invisibility, also present in the history of photography. Encouraging exhibitors to highlight the work of women does not amount to locking them a little more into a simplistic category but rather to making them gain visibility and nourish the history of photography with other narratives. While some photographers have been able to benefit from exhibitions in recent years and integrate collections, others still remain in the shadows or are to be rediscovered.
Thirty stops along the route of the 2021 edition. The selection offers works dating from 1851 to 2021, from the English botanist and pioneer Anna Atkins to the self-taught Mame-Diarra Niang who develops a work between France and Africa and whose portraits precisely question the visible. Navigating through 170 years of photography, the course brings together artists from several continents. It features works by women who revolved in artistic circles of the interwar period, such as Madame d’Ora or Dora Maar. These have been relegated to the periphery of the history of photography, as is the case with Annelise Kretschmer even though she was a recognized artist on the German art scene at the end of the 1920s. also promotes artists who have developed a work committed in the wake of the feminist movements of the 70s. Let us remember here ORLAN and his Nude descending the staircase dating from 1967. There is also a focus on a generation of women who left their mark on 90s photography, from Sally Mann to Carrie Mae Weems, to historical figures whose work has often been overshadowed. This is the case of the Finnish Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen who photographed the working-class districts of Newcastle without filter and of the American Deborah Turbeville whose work is too often summarized in her fashion photographs. Finally, the course showcases artists active today who explore contemporary themes. Several of them, such as Anastasia Samoylova and Almudena Romero, look at nature. Others, like Dimakatso Mathopa from South Africa, are interested in gender and racial stereotypes and question a history of images that is imbued with a worldview reflecting the colonial patriarchal system. Many other artists could have composed this selection. Looking through these images, we observe that feminizing the history of photography above all allows us to bring a renewal to our imaginations.
Nathalie Herschdorfer, Curator Director of the Museum of Fine Arts of Le Locle, Switzerland
Selected artists
Jun Ahn (Korea, born 1981) CHRISTOPHE GUYE Zurich
Anna Atkins (England, born 1799, died 1871) HANS P. KRAUS JR. new York
Madame d´Ora (Austria, born 1881, died 1963) GILLES PEYROULET & CIE Paris
Annelise Kretschmer (Germany, born 1903, died 1987) KICKEN
Berlin Dora Maar (born 1907) GILLES PEYROULET & CIE Paris
Genevieve Naylor (United States, born 1915) STALEY-WISE New York
Hisae Imai (Japan, born 1931, deceased 2009) THE THIRD GALLERY AYA Osaka
Deborah Turbeville (United States, born 1932, deceased 2013) MUUS COLLECTION New Jersey
Mary Ellen Mark (United States, born 1940) HOWARD GREENBERG New York
Judith Joy Ross (United States, born 1946) THOMAS ZANDER Cologne
ORLAN (France, born 1947) CEYSSON & BÉNÉTIÈRE Paris
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (Finland, born 1948) L. PARKER STEPHENSON New York
Anne Bean (United Kingdom, born 1950) ENGLAND & CO London
Arlene Gottfried (United States, born 1950, deceased 2017) LES DOUCHES Paris
Sally Mann (United States, born 1951) EDWYNN HOUK New York
Vera Lutter (United States, born 1960) XIPPAS Paris
Pilar Albarracin (Spain, born 1968) GEORGES-PHILIPPE & NATHALIE VALLOIS Paris
Katy Grannan (United States, born 1969) FRAENKEL San Francisco
Jessica Backhaus (Germany, born 1970) ROBERT MORAT Berlin
Gloria Oyarzabal (Spain, born 1971) ROCIOSANTACRUZ Barcelona
Mickalene Thomas (United States, born 1971) YANCEY RICHARDSON New York
Sarah Anne Johnson (Canada, born 1976) YOSSI MILO New York
Ester Vonplon (Switzerland, born 1980) STEPHAN WITSCHI Zurich
Mame-Diarra Niang (France, born 1982) STEVENSON Cape Town
Anastasia Samoylova (Russia, born 1984) CAROLINE O’BREEN Amsterdam – CURIOSA
Petra Cortright (United States, born 1986) JPMORGAN CHASE ART COLLECTION
Frida Orupabo (Norway, born 1986) NORDENHAKE Berlin
Almudena Romero (Spain, born 1986) WINNER OF THE BMW ART & CULTURE RESIDENCE
Maisie Cousins (United Kingdom, born 1992) TJ BOULTING London – CURIOSA
Dimakatso Mathopa (South Africa, born 1995) AFRONOVA Johannesburg
Paris Photo
From November 11 to 14, 2021
Grand Palais Éphémère
Champ-de-Mars, Place Joffre
75007 Paris
