Lume presents Ladies Rooms Around the World by Maxi Cohen. Cohen is an artist and filmmaker based in New York City. Growing up, bathrooms were Maxi’s favorite hiding place and a sanctuary of solitude in an otherwise densely populated world. In the ladies room, the artist was always lecturing herself into some courageous act, rehearsing how to be spontaneous or just disappearing from visibility.
In 1978, she was at the Mimi Film Festival with her first feature-length documentary, Joe and Maxi, a film about Maxi’s relationship with her father. To escape the boring awards dinner at the hotel ballroom, she retreated to the ladies room. Enchanted by the octogenarians adjusting their corsets and false eyelashes, Cohen took a camera from her purse and photographed the camaraderie of their tribal dance within this temple of porcelain and silver. Thus began her journey photographing in ladies rooms around the world – from Australia to Zambia, Bombay to Bosnia, Rio to Tel Aviv. Through Maxi Cohen explorations of ladies rooms, she began to reflect on important questions. What we normally know about the world is learned through the words and actions of men. But what if the silence of women, whose perceptions are often different, was broken and we began to see what is hidden within? This project reveals vulnerable moments and intimate confessions on issues ranging from sex to adultery, power to abuse, fashion to fame, social outcry to celebratory expression, horror to delight.
FESTIVAL
Paris Photo Los Angeles
May 1st – 3rd, 2015
Galeria Lume
Paramount Pictures Studios
Los Angeles
780 N. Gower Street
Los Angeles, CA 90038
United States
