When we were in Amsterdam at New Year, my boyfriend and I were lucky  enough to see ‘On Being an Angel’ at Foam the photography Museum. ‘On Being an Angel’ was an incredible retrospective of American photographer Francesca Woodman’s work which ran from 18th December 2015 – 9th March 2016. I had never come across her work before so I was incredibly lucky to witness it in this collective way. It was raw, it was subtle and it was beautiful. Woodman generally took herself to derelict locations and created what you could I suppose call a body of self-portraits. Her portfolio is vast and sensitive, mostly shot in black and white with long exposures. Viewing it in the form of a retrospective was interesting as it allowed you to more fully comprehend her progression as a photographer and artist. I wrote a piece about Woodman’s work with the intention of submitting it for an art writing prize, but ended up submitting something else in the end. So instead of leaving the written piece dormant on my laptop, I’m instead going to publish it in two installments on my blog across two days.  

It can be a curse to the artwork when an artist dies young, as from that point onwards their work will inevitably be read in relation to their premature death. Eva Hesse is a prime example of this, as the rhetoric surrounding her body of work never fails to mention the brain tumour that took her life at the age of merely thirty-four. Francesca Woodman’s work does not escape this morbid reading either given her suicide aged twenty-two. Woodman had not long left her student days behind when she killed herself and consequently her work became imbued with tragedy; with an attempt to try and solve the mystery and turmoil surrounding this ‘lost girl’. Yet in her work Woodman was far from lost as she had an aura that has become iconic to her powerful photographs. They are all to an extent self-portraits, as the majority of Woodman’s photographs are composed by her placing herself within a chosen environment. Despite the settings being a critical element to her compositions, they do not feel forced. Quite the opposite; her placement within the surroundings feels like the most natural thing in the world, even if it does happen to be in an apparently derelict room.

By photographing herself in abandoned-looking places Woodman creates a sense of both hopelessness and emptiness which are highlighted through her solitude in the space. There is a melancholy to the majority of her images, particularly the ones in which her expression can be depicted, as a smile is a rarity. Yet for Woodman photography was no smiling matter, but instead a personal exploration of the female form, gender, sexuality and self. The nude figure was a common motif throughout her work which created an explicit sense of vulnerability. By posing naked Woodman was peeling back not only the physical layers, but also the psychological. She was exposing herself to her audience by allowing her body and self to be truly scrutinized; although more often than not the body in Woodman’s photographs tends to be slightly obscured. Whether this is through a material covering of the body, awkward placement of self, or unusual camera angles; there was rarely a clear and easily read depiction of the figure.

Woodman instead favoured this sense of ambiguity; a body that is both present and absent simultaneously. ‘On Being an Angel’ includes a lot of photographs that evidence this theme of Woodman’s. When confronted with her work throughout this exhibition there is a lot of contemplation involved in the reading of it; her pieces are not designed for easy digestion. Instead they are complex and demanding, forcing the eye to engage and to question what it is seeing. ‘Space 2’  (above) is the perfect example of this as Woodman has chosen to incorporate the wallpaper as a physical prop to obscure her body. We are left wondering where her body begins and the wall ends. There is also a very sensual component to this piece, as the placement of her hand draws attraction to the area surrounding her groin. The angle at which her other arm holds the wallpaper is also sexually suggestive as the viewer’s eye travels up the diagonal of the wallpaper almost expecting to see a hint of side-breast.

Text to continue in tomorrow’s post…