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GENDER PERFORMANCE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

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GENDER PERFORMANCE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

JENNIFER BLESSING

JUDITH HALBERSTAM LYLE ASHTON HARRIS NANCY SPECTOR CAROLE-ANNE TYLER SARAH WILSON

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose:

Gender Performance in Photography

Organized by Jennifer Blessing

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York January 17— April 27, 1997

front cover:

Claude Cahun

Self- Portrait, ca. 1928

Gelatin-silver print,

11 'X. x 9>s inches (30 x 23.8 cm)

Musee des Beaux Arts de Nantes

This exhibition is supported in part by the National Endowment tor the Arts

€)1997 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York. All rights reserved.

ISBN 0-8109-6901-7 (hardcover) ISBN 0-89207-185-0 (softcover)

back cover:

Nan Goldin

Jimmy Paulettc and Tabboo! in the bathroom, NYC, 1991

Cibachrome print,

30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)

Courtesy of the artist and

Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Guggenheim Museum Publications

1071 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10128

Hardcover edition distributed by

Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

100 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10011

Designed by Bethany Johns Design, New York Printed in Italy by Sfera

Contents

JENNIFER BLESSING

xyVwMie is a c/\rose is a z/vxose

Gender Performance in Photography

JENNIFER BLESSING

CAROLE-ANNE TYLER

id'emt nut files - KyMxUcuo&wuieS

134

SARAH WILSON

156 c/ erfoymuiq me c/jodt/ im me J970s

NANCY SPECTOR

176 ^ne S$r/ of ~&e#idew

Bathrooms, Butches, and the Aesthetics of Female Masculinity

JUDITH HALBERSTAM

190 f//a« waclna

LYLE ASHTON HARRIS

Stfrtists ' iyjtoqra/inies

204

TRACEY BASHKOFF, SUSAN CROSS, VIVIEN GREENE, AND J. FIONA RAGHEB

221

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Honorary Trustees in Perpetuity Solomon R. Guggenheim Justin K. Thannhauser Peggy Guggenheim

Chairman

Peter Lawson-Johnston

President

Ronald O. Perelman

Vice-Presidents Robert M. Gardiner Wendy L-J. McNeil

Vice-President and Treasurer Stephen C. Swid

Director Thomas Krens

Secretary Edward F. Rover

Honorary Trustee Claude Pompidou

Trustee, Ex Officio Jacques E. Lennon

Director Emeritus Thomas M. Messer

Trustees

Giovanni Agnelli

Jon Imanol Azua

Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

The Right Honorable Earl

Castle Stewart Mary Sharp Cronson Carlo De Benedetti Daniel Filipacchi Robert M. Gardiner Barbara Jonas David H. Koch Thomas Krens Peter Lawson-Johnston Rolf-Dieter Leister Peter B. Lewis Peter Littmann Wendy L-J. McNeil Edward H. Meyer Ronald O. Perelman Frederick Reid Richard A. Rifkind Denise Saul Rudolph B. Schulhof Terry Semel James B. Sherwood Raja Sidawi Seymour Slive Stephen C. Swid John S. Wadsworth, Jr. Cornel West Michael F. Wettach John Wilmerding William T Ylvisaker

-Z.<'//f/r/'.j /( ///< c j ////</ Yff //

Timothy Baum, New York

Cecil Beaton Archive, Sotheby's London

Galerie Berggruen, Paris

Patrick Breen

Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Diisseldorf

Robert C. Conn, California

The Detroit Institute of Arts

Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt

William S. Ehrlich and Ruth Lloyds

Alexandra Epps

M. Anthony and Anne E. Fisher

Fonds Albert-Birot, Paris

Barry Friedman Ltd., New York

Nan Goldin

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Ronnie and Samuel Heyman, New York

Jane B. Holzer

Vivian Horan

Jedermann Collection, N. A.

Joan and Gerald Kimmelman

Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and

Reproduction, Inc., Bloomington, Ind. Margo Leavin Gallery, West Hollywood Los Angeles County Museum of Art Christian Marclay Matthew Marks Gallery, New York Richard and Ronay Menschel Carol and Paul Meringoff Annette Messager The Metropolitan Museum of Art Robert Miller Gallery, New York Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Musee des Beaux- Arts de Nantes Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges

Pompidou, Paris

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

National Portrait Gallery, London

Daniel Newburg

Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin

Michael James O'Brien

Parti Communiste Francais, Paris

The Philadelphia Museum of Art

REFCO Group, Ltd.

Regen Projects, Los Angeles

G. Rossi, Milan

The Royal Photographic Society, Bath

Beverly and Harris Schoenfeld

Michael Senft, New York

Fisher Stevens

Jack Tilton Gallery, New York

Ubu Gallery, New York

Wooster Gardens, New York

Three lenders who wish to remain anonymous

VII

Cindy Sherman

Untitled, #112, 19H2

Color photograph, 45.' x 30 inches (114.9 x 76.2 cm), ed. 1/10

REFCO Group, Ltd.

Jp'<ume,Je, n 'cUmefiaA ■ — ' I like, I don'l like

Js Yi/ce. : salad, cinnamon, cheese, pimento, marzipan, the smell of new-cut hay (why doesn't someone with a "nose" make such a perfume), roses, peonies, laven- der, champagne, loosely held political convictions, Glenn Gould, too-cold beer, flat pillows, toast, Havana cigars, Handel, slow walks, pears, white peaches, cherries, colors, watches, all kinds of writing pens, desserts, unrefined salt, realistic novels, the piano, coffee. Pollock, Twombly, all romantic music, Sartre, Brecht, Verne, Fourier, Eisenstein, trains, Medoc wine, having change, Bouvard and Pecuchet. walking in sandals on the lanes of southwest France, the bend of the Adour seen from Doctor L.'s house, the Marx Brothers, the mountains at seven in the morning leaving Salamanca, etc.

J/ cloot Y /(Arc : white Pomeranians, women in slacks, geraniums, strawberries, the harpsichord, Miro, tautologies, animated cartoons, Arthur Rubinstein, villas, the afternoon, Satie, Bartok, Vivaldi, telephoning, children's choruses, Chopin's concertos, Burgundian branles and Renaissance dances, the organ, Marc- Antoine Charpentier, his trumpets and kettledrums, the politico-sexual, scenes, initiatives, fidelity, spontaneity, evenings with people I don't know, etc.

J/ li/oe, J/ aon Y Yi/ce : this is of no importance to anyone; this, apparently, has no meaning. And yet all this means: my body is not the same as yours. Hence, in this anarchic foam of tastes and distastes, a kind of listless blur, gradually appears the figure of a bodily enigma, requiring complicity or irritation. Here begins the intimidation of the body, which obliges others to endure me liberally, to remain silent and polite confronted by pleasures or rejections which they do not share.

(A fly bothers me, I kill it: you kill what bothers you. If I had not killed the fly, it would have been out o/ pure liberalism: I am liberal in order not to be a killer.)

—ROLAND BARTHES

Xjrovetuwd

THOMAS KRENS

An important milestone in the history of the Guggenheim Museum was reached in 1993, when the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation made a combined gift of a significant body of photographs and a supporting grant for the future acquisition of Modern and contemporary photography. The gift established photography as a significant part of the Guggenheim's permanent collection, thus offering an additional medium to further the Guggenheim's mission of interpreting the art of this century. In the past few years, the museum has offered a rich selection of photography exhibitions including monographic shows on Robert Mapplethorpe and Joel-Peter Witkin; photography sections within the context of other exhibitions (The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943-1968; Joseph Albers: Glass, Color, and Light; and In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present); as well as exhibitions organized by other institutions, such as Photography in Contemporary German Art (Walker Art Center); Women on the Edge: Twenty Photographers in Europe, 1919-1939 (J. Paul Getty Museum); and Dieter Appelt (Art Institute of Chicago).

As we reach the end of this century, more exhibitions that attempt to synthesize the art and issues of the twentieth century are being organized. The Guggenheim is committed to approaching art as an international and transhistorical phenomenon. The institution has always been strongly linked to Europe; now, responding to changes in contemporary society brought about through advances in transportation and telecommunications, its orientation has become global. Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography is the Guggenheim Museum's first photography exhibition to be based on premises that are thematic and theoretical rather than monographic or strictly historical. It traces an issue across the course of the twentieth century and examines its devel- opment in several countries.

We are most grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency, for its early sup- port of Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. Without its imprimatur, it is unlikely that the research for this pro- ject could have been undertaken. Through this support, our audience will be permitted to enjoy the art of many artists whose work has not previously been exhibited at the museum and, in some cases, has never before been shown in the United States.

Guggenheim Museum Assistant Curator Jennifer Blessing proposed this exhibition several years ago. I want to thank her for suggesting this innovative show, and for her diligence and commitment in seeing it through to its splendid realization.

And, finally, this exhibition would not be possible without the artists who created the works and the lenders who were so considerate as to lend them. My gratitude goes to all of the individuals and institutions who so generously contributed to the success of this project.

JENNIFER BLESSING

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. ISAAC NEWTON

This exhibition is the fruit of encouragement from colleagues, without which I might not have pur- sued the topic. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to present my initial ideas in graduate semi- nars conducted by Linda Nochlin and Robert Lubar at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. In 1993, Guggenheim Museum Associate Curator Nancy Spector first suggested that I pro- pose an exhibition related to my academic work in Surrealism and the theory of masquerade. I thank her for being a source of inspiration and a supportive comrade throughout this project.

At an early stage in its development, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a grant to Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography. Although the various parties who sup- ported the show are unknown to me, I wish I could personally thank each one. This important grant provided the necessary impetus to propel the show from the drawing board to the implementation stage. I feel that I should also thank the NEA on behalf of the people who have told me over the years that they felt the exhibition would speak to their interests and concerns. If, in the final analysis, the exhibition has achieved that result, it will have accomplished one of the goals of the NEA.

Of course, without the support of the museum's director, Thomas Krens, this exhibition would never have become a reality. I am, as ever, grateful for his perspicacity and insight. At crucial moments, I have relied on the support and advice of Lisa Dennison, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, and Germano Celant, Curator of Contemporary Art.

On behalf of everyone at the museum, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the exhi- bition's lenders, who are listed elsewhere in this catalogue. I would particularly like to thank the many private collectors who have so generously lent their important works. It is our great good fortune that they were willing to share their pieces with our visitors.

I would also like to express my appreciation to colleagues and their institutions whose loans made this exhibition possible: Samuel Sachs II, Director, The Detroit Institute of Arts; John Bancroft, Director, and Jennifer Pearson Yamashiro, Associate Curator, Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Inc., Bloomington, Ind.; Graham Beal, Director, Robert Sobieszek, Curator, and Tim Wride, Assistant Curator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Philippe de Montebello, Director, and Maria Morris Hambourg, Curator in Charge, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Suzanne Page, Director, and Gerard Audinet, Curator, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Jean Aubert, Director, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Nantes; Germain Viatte, Director, and Alain Sayag, Curator, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre de Creation Industrielle au Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Glenn Lowry, Director, Peter Galassi, Chief Curator, and Virginia Dodier, Study Center Supervisor, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Terence Pepper, Curator of Photographs Collection, and Paul Cox, Picture Librarian, National Portrait Gallery, London; Anne d'Harnoncourt, Director, Innis Howe Shoemaker, Senior Curator, and Martha Chahroudi Mock, Associate Curator of Photography, The Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Pam Roberts, Curator, The Royal Photographic Society, Bath.

I am deeply appreciative of the galleries from which we borrowed works; they are also listed among the lenders. Frequently, their directors and staff also provided important information and assistance. I am especially grateful for the efforts of Alexandra Rowley, Robert Miller Gallery, New

York; Florian Karsch, Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin; Shaun Caley, Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Adam Boxer, Ubu Gallery, New York; and Brent Sikkema, Wooster Gardens, New York. In the research process, I also benefited from the expertise (and enthusiasm) of other dealers, most particularly Virginia Zabriskie, Zabriskie Gallery, New York and Paris. I must also thank Christian Bouqueret and Marie-Claude Lebon, Galerie Bouqueret-Lebon, Paris; Christine and Isy Brachot, Galerie Christine et Isy Brachot, Brussels and Paris; Martin McGeowin and Andrew Wheatley, Cabinet Gallery, London; Chantal Crousel, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; Ealan Wingate, Gagosian Gallery, New York; Mark Fletcher, formerly Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York; Rhona Hoffman and Judy Brauner, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; Paul Kasmin, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York; Rudolf Kicken, Galerie Rudolf Kicken, Cologne; Matthew Marks, Andrew Leslie, and Jeffrey Peabody, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York; Janelle Reiring and Tom Heeman, Metro Pictures, New York; Ben Barzune, for- merly Metro Pictures; Marcel and David Fleiss, Galerie 1900-2000, Paris; Deborah Irmas, formerly PaceWildensteinMacGill Gallery, Beverly Hills; Eleanor Barefoot, PaceWildensteinMacGill Gallery, New York; Alain Paviot, Galerie Alain Paviot, Paris; and Jack Tilton and Annabella Johnson, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York. Michael Joseph, Janine Antoni's assistant, has been quite helpful on various occasions. I am also grateful for the good offices of Ariane Grigoteit, Deutsche Bank AG; Georges Marchais and Jean-Louis Raach, Parti Communiste Francais; and Philippe Garner and Lydia Cresswell-Jones at Sotheby's London.

My research was assisted by various colleagues, to whom I am especially grateful: Jorn Merkert, Director, Berlinische Galerie; Dana Friis-Hansen, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Julian Cox, Assistant Curator, and Jacklyn Burns, Rights and Reproductions Coordinator, J. Paul Getty Museum, Santa Monica; Erna Haist, Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart; Didier Schulmann, Chief Curator of Collections, and Nathalie Leleu, Loan Coordinator, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre de Creation Industrielle au Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator, Russell Ferguson, Editor, and Connie Butler, Associate Curator/MSW, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Adam Brooks, Curator, REFCO Group, Ltd., Chicago; Ulrich Krempel, Director, Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Peter Boswell, Associate Curator, and Rochelle Steiner, Curatorial Assistant, both formerly Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Vincent Fremont, Exclusive Agent, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York. Other individuals who have provided important information and support are: Arlette Albert-Birot, Wayne Baerwaldt, Gaia Battaglioli, Gilberte Brassai, Eileen Cohen, James Crump, Daniel Filipacchi, Frank Kolodny, Janet Lehr, Anne Radcliffe, Michael and B. Z. Schwartz, Arturo Schwarz, Thomas Walther, and Jack Woody.

Many Guggenheim Museum staff members contributed enormously to the success of this exhibi- tion. At various times, I have greatly relied on the astute aid of Vivien Greene, Curatorial Assistant, who also wrote the bulk of the catalogue biographies. I have benefited from the adept assistance of Exhibition Assistants Josette Lamoureux and Claudia Schmuckli. Other curatorial colleagues whose counsel I have frequently depended upon include Assistant Curators Clare Bell, Matthew Drutt, and J. Fiona Ragheb, and Exhibition Coordinator Jon Ippolito. Heidi Weber, Manager of Government Grants and Research, and Julie Schieffelin, Manager of Foundation and Corporate Giving, both thoughtfully developed grant applications for this project.

Aileen Rosenberg, Assistant Registrar, has ably handled the myriad complex arrangements for the loans to this exhibition. I also thank Suzanne Ouigley, Head Registrar for Collections and Exhibitions, for offering assistance at various moments. Gillian McMillan, Conservator, has thought-

fully considered the conditions of the works and how best to present them. Elizabeth Jaff, Assistant Paper Preparator, carefully realized ingenious solutions to various framing issues. Jocelyn Brayshaw, Exhibition Technician, led a wonderful installation crew that included Jack Davidson, Jody Hanson, Matt Schwede, and Bob Seng. Without their expertise, the exhibition presentation would have been diminished. Peter Read, Jr., Production Services Manager/Exhibition Design Coordinator, deftly orga- nized the overall installation arrangements, which included the services of Richard Gombar, Museum Technician. Jocelyn Groom, Exhibition Technician/ Administrative Assistant, made numerous helpful contributions to this project in the design stages. Mary Ann Hoag, Lighting Technician, sensitively devised the lighting for the exhibition. I would also like to thank Scott Gutterman, Director of Public Affairs, and Julia Caldwell, Public Affairs Coordinator, for their efforts on behalf of the show.

I am deeply appreciative of the encouragement of Anthony Calnek, Director of Publications, and his skillful realization of this catalogue. Without him it is no understatement to say that this book would likely have remained a figment of my imagination. I am especially grateful for the talents of Elizabeth Levy, Managing Editor, and Melissa Secondino, Production Assistant, who have meticulous- ly controlled the book's production. Edward Weisberger, Editor, and Jennifer Knox White, Associate Editor, lent their editorial acumen to this project, and Keith Mayerson provided invaluable assistance.

My gratitude to Deborah Drier, Project Editor, for her sensitive editing of the essays in this book is profound. Her expertise was essential for this project and her contribution is greatly appreciated.

I am most fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Bethany Johns, who designed this catalogue as well as the exhibition graphics. She has created a beautiful book, which superbly articu- lates the intentions of Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose.

This project has been subsidized by the contribution of many interns who have worked, over the past few years, on myriad aspects of the show. These interns include Pamela Burns, Raffaella Cardinali, Alison Engel, Jan-Philipp Friihsorge, Franziska Martin, James McNamara, Jennifer Miller, Lee Ann Pomplas-Bruening, Rajendra Roy, Janice Yang, and Kate Zamet. I am grateful for their assis- tance, without which I would not have been able to see this project to its fruition.

I am delighted to include the work of catalogue contributors whose efforts are a constant source of inspiration. These authors have brought their unique vision and style to the material and immea- surably enhanced the final product. I want to thank Judith Halberstam, Lyle Ashton Harris, Nancy Spector, Carole-Anne Tyler, and Sarah Wilson for their stimulating insights. I also deeply appreciate my colleagues in the curatorial department, Tracey Bashkoff, Susan Cross, and J. Fiona Ragheb, who contributed additional biographical entries on the artists in the exhibition.

Finally, my deepest thanks go to the artists whose work is in the exhibition. It is ultimately their creativity that has inspired my efforts. Studying their work has been a tremendous pleasure for me, and also a great challenge, because each oeuvre and object has its own logic, which will always on some level defy any discourse (like mine) that attempts to define it. I have benefited enormously from many of the artists' patient responses to my numerous inquiries and their thoughtful com- ments. I am honored to include their work in this exhibition, and look forward with anticipation to their future endeavors.

To my colleagues, friends, and family, who not only have home my obsession with this project,

but who have actually enjoyed the ride, I give my sincere gratitude and affection, and heartfelt wish

that I may be for you in the future that which you have been for me.

Cecil Beaton

( ouiUca ( 'astegii, 1927

Gelatin-silver print, 8 , x 5 "„. inches (21 x 14.5 cm)

Cecil Beaton Archive, Sotheby's London

Jw«?fc

JENNIFER BLESSING

This exhibition and book represent an argument. They are based on a chain of interlocking premises that you, the reader, may choose to follow or not. As in all group shows, there is a willful- ness about the selection of works: artists who have never met, who lived at different times, who sought to achieve widely dis- parate goals are linked together despite their differences. Which is not to say that the selection is arbitrary. Rather, these works, gathered together as they are, shape a narrative of sorts, reflect a story of human existence in the twentieth century.

In skeletal form, the chain of postulates I develop, and which underlie the other contributions to this book, looks like this: '

S$- i&i/dnavu vi-tUrne popular interest in gender presentation and sexuality in the 1990s intersects with an explosion in the production of art that takes as it subject the body and its coverings. Books, articles, films, and web sites on cross-dressing, transgenderism, and various sexualities ("lesbian chic," the rehabilitation of bisexuality, and so on) proliferate. Neo-Expressionist painting and language-based Conceptual art of the 1980s is followed, in this decade, by work that focuses on the body as a physical entity and the construction of identity. In this light, Cindy Sherman's feints and disguises seem to herald developments of the 1990s. The contradictory juxtapositions of body parts and vestimentary codes fore- ground gender play, or "gender trouble."

Claude Cahun

Self-Portrait, 1927 Gelatin-silver print, 4 \ }'■'• inches (11.7 x 8.8 cm) The Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Albert and Peggy de Salle Charitable Trust and the DeRoy Photographic Acquisition Endowment Fund

y>

y//te J.().')( :> /riV//<\,.t an exponential expansion in the growth of academic gay and lesbian studies, much of which is influenced by the provocative new theoretical models of gender construction developed by philosopher Judith Butler. Butler's 1990 book Gender Double: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity inspires subsequent research in a variety of disci- plines, including art history2 Queer studies present some of the most stimulating develop- ments in the theoretical understanding of the formation of identity since the 1970s and

1

1980s work of feminist psychoanalytic and film theorists. These conceptual tools enable fruitful readings of contemporary cultural produc- tion— whether fine art or mass media.

Cecil Beaton

Gary Cooper, 1931

( lelatin-silver print,

12 x 8 % inches (30.5 x 22.7 cm)

Cecil Beaton Archive,

Sotheby's London

ten me tens of investigation is widened beyond our contemporary preoccupations, it is clear that now is not the first, nor will it be the last, historical moment in which issues of gen- der and sexuality hold a particular prominence. Not only do aspects of European art production between the two world wars (notably Dada and its legacy in Surrealism) resemble certain fea- tures of contemporary art, but some of the psy- choanalytic roots of current gender theory date to the late 1920s and 1930s. Furthermore, a sub- sequent continuum appears to begin in the late 1960s, proceeding with greater or lesser vitality until the present. The phenomenon of "Sexual Liberation" manifested itself in cultural produc- tion, so that performance and body art of the early 1970s resonate in contemporary art. Hypotheses concerning the lacuna of the early postwar period — from 1945 to the mid-1960s — remain to be analyzed.

^//ie medium 0/ photography yields the perfect arena for the play of gender and sexuality. The technological inception of photographic means of reproduction corresponds (not by accident) with the nineteenth-century unfolding of the legacy of the Enlightenment's exaltation of the individual. The rise of mythologies of the self such as psychoanalysis and capitalism coincide with the techno- logical means to reflect each being unto itself, as well as to promote it in the world without. Representing the physicality of the body in contemporary art, photography and other reproductive mediums such as film and video share with sculpture and performance a special relationship with notions of the Real. This exhibition examines the manner in which photography's strong aura of real- ism and objectivity promotes a fantasy of total gender transformation, or, conversely, allows the artic- ulation of incongruity between the posing body and its assumed costume. The range of photographic representations includes documentary-style portraiture, theatrically constructed self-portraits, and photomontages created from found photographically based materials, with frequent overlaps in tech- nique or method among such categories.

These are the postulates that generate the patterns of Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography:' In the following essay , I present four narratives that encompass, in roughly chrono- logical order, the works. These are not the only stories that could be told, but rather four ways to look

at the assembled material. They elaborate the premises listed above, providing historical evidence to support the theses, yet they should not be construed as indicating that the artists involved created their works to illustrate a theory, or that the works themselves are reducible to a single issue. Rather, the art is examined as a text, among other texts (literary, historical, theoretical), yet with its own motives and internal logic. Each of my fellow authors elucidates some of the same themes, enriching them through their particular expertise, and, at times, diverging from them in meaningful ways.

Nan Goldin

/ )avid at < Wove Street, Boston, 1972

( ielatin -silver print,

zo x in inches 1 50.8 \ 40.6 cm

( ourtes) of the artist and

Matthew Marks 1 iallery,

New York

. ' ///)/■/'(/ , /(/'.,/< n< (//'<<//// 1/ </ he infer ////<■<• j' tf

>/ //<

We may not know exactly what sex is;

but we do know that it is mutable,

with the possibility of one sex being changed

into the other sex, that its frontiers are often

uncertain, and that there are many stages

between a complete male and a complete female.

havelock ellis, The Psychology of Sex, 19334

Claude Cahun

- </ Portrait, 1929 < lelatin silver print,

inches 1 13.9 x 8.8 cm) Museum Boymans van I'm uningen Rotterdam

With the post-Enlightenment decline of such explanatory systems of human civilization as monarchy and religion, there arose the central discipline concerned with the epistemology of the individual, the sci- ence of psychoanalysis. By the end of the nineteenth century, psycho- analysis had organized itself around issues of the sexual body and the development of its behaviors in the mind. Psychoanalytic accounts of the formation of gender identity (and here Sigmund Freud's texts are key) posited masculinity as normative, and femininity as a kind of enigma, an excess or inscrutable other." The period between the two world wars witnessed a burst of publications examining the nature of feminine sexuality and identity, many written by women analysts, whose assimilation into their profession reflected wider changes in the role of women in society." It is not accidental that women were drawn to the question of feminine identity, as the very nature of femininity was part of a larger social debate. The rise of the "new- woman," with her call for changes in women's inferior legal status and domestic and public roles, took on particular urgency in this period, in which women demanded the right to vote, modifica- tions in marriage and inheritance laws, access to universities and professions, as well as alterations in dress and comportment. In each case, women sought to have equity with men, which led to ambiva- lence, and the fear that women were becoming men (wearing their clothes, smoking, endangering their reproductive capacities through "unnatural" intellectual pursuits, and so on). It is in this context that the analyst loan Riviere made her contribution to the debate in the form of a paper entitled "Womanliness as a Masquerade," published in 1929, in which she posited that professional women appear in ultrafeminine attire in order to assuage their male colleagues, who fear their prerogative is imperiled. For Riviere, femininity is constituted in dissembling or the masking of women's masculin- ity by burying it beneath a veil of decoration. She makes no claims for an inherent femininity, but rather constructs feminine identity as an alienated social performance.

facques Lacan resuscitated Riviere's work in a 1958 paper, "The Meaning of the Phallus," which contains a line that has since become a dictum: "I would say that it is in order to be the phallus, that i to say, the signifier of the desire of the Other, that the woman will reject an essential part of her femininity, notably all its attributes through masquerade."" In the context of his rereading of Freudian [lysis with linguistics, Lacan maintained that the phallus is a signifier of power; however,

Madame Yevonde

Mrs. Edward Meyer as "Medusa," from the Goddesses series, ishs Vivex color print, 14 '■„ x 11 X inches (36.3 x 29.7 cm) ' The Royal Photographic Society, Bath

Man Ray

Cini-sketch: Adam and Eve.,

1924-25

Gelatin-silver print,

%'/, x 5X inches (21 x 14 cm)

Collection of Daniel Newburg

although each subject has a Symbolic relationship to the phallus in the form of "having" it or "appearing" as it {beingthe phallus), no one actually possesses it. Film theorists interested in how iden- tity is constructed diegetically in movies, as well as in the condi- tions of spectatorship, absorbed Lacan's work into their own. French critics first specifically engaged his reading of Riviere in 1970, British critics in 1975.9 From the 1970s to the present, Lacanian constructions of femininity as masquerade have been developed and contested in many disciplines, including feminist psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and art criticism."1

In the 1990s, theorists have broadened the notion of femi- ninity as masquerade to encompass any gender identity. Like fem- ininity, masculinity is a mythic construction that is perpetuated through the performative repetition of stereotypes of behavior and dress." Gay and lesbian theorists have been especially con- cerned with the study of various sites in which performances cause "gender trouble," namely female impersonation, cross- dressing, and butch/femme aesthetics. This work convincingly exposes the heterosexist presumptions of earlier theoretically inspired studies, and delineates the range of gender positions (as opposed to a strictly binary dichotomy) as well as their historical diversity. When an interviewer mentioned the simplified reading of Butler's work as indicating that "all gender is drag," Butler responded, "Yet I accept the idea that gender is an impersonation, that becoming gendered involves impersonating an ideal that nobody actually inhabits, and that's where I have a certain sympathy with Lacanian discourse."12

Accepting as a given that a fixed notion of the concepts "man," "woman," "masculine," and "feminine" is impossible does not mean that each individual can always voluntarily choose to inhabit a position. For example, the feminine masquerade of a female-born subject may involve conformity to social expectation, while, for the same person, a butch presentation may yield a forced self- consciousness in certain contexts because of a socially perceived enunciation of difference. Which is drag? Hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity in a heterosexual situation may be perceived as essentially equivalent to their respective male and female subjects, while cross-dressing is more easily read as a purposeful (or artificial) performance. The hyperbolic representation of gender seems conformist when sex and gender presentation correspond and oppositional when they differ.15 Yet, as Butler asserts, "There are no direct expressive or causal lines between sex, gender, gender presenta- tion, sexual practice, fantasy and sexuality.""

It might seem that, having evacuated these concepts of any essential biological determination, they would become amorphous, free-floating signifiers subject to arbitrarily assigned -meaning. Instead, as the works in this exhibition exemplify, myriad codes exist that are, alternately, accepted or manipulated. Throughout history there have been attempts to transcend the notion of binary sexual and gender distinctions through "third sex" concepts such as the androgyne and neologisms such as Eonist, Uranian, invert, Sapphist, or Amazon." The nineteenth-century figure of the androgyne appeared to deny difference, basically annexing "femininity" to masculine precepts."' Third-sex terms

Brassai

"Bijou" o) Montmartre, iy32

Gelatin-silver print,

11 -xi). inches (30.2 x 23.2 cm)

The Museum of Modern Art,

New York,

David H. McAlpin Fund

fix a variety of subjectivities under one banner, on the margins of the "master" binary logic. Current theoretical conceptualizations of identity recognize both the inability to escape the binary system and the desire to corrupt it in a pleasurable way. Occasionally, these pleasures, these troubled genders, are described as ambiguous, yet they seem to be anything but. Mixing gender codes does not so much result in uniform gender blurring, which presupposes a kind of equal distribution of gender effects yielding indeterminability, but rather a variety of specific, readable, and nameable perfor- mances. In other words, a gender-ambiguous subject is never invisible; it announces the juxtaposition of codes in one subject.

So where does the pleasure come from? I am reminded of that commonplace of the casual art lover: "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." Perhaps gender operates in the same way, in that sometimes you don't want to know, you just want to feel.'" And yet, as any student will tell you, the more you learn, the more your tastes change. In the epigraph that appears at the start of this book, Roland Barthes posits a deceptively simple notion of self that is defined by the peculiar

George Piatt Lynes

I 'ntitled, ca. 1941 Gelatin-silver print, 9% x 7/. inches (23.2 \ 19.4 cm) ( !ourtesy of the Kinsey Institute tui Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Inc., Bloomington, Indiana

accumulation of seemingly inconsequential likes and dislikes, the concatenation of tastes.1" Each indi- vidual can define itself by similarities to and distinctions from others ("I like cherries, too; but unlike him, I like women in slacks. My body is like/unlike his.") The possible reasons for given tastes can always be examined and more or less convincing explanations developed, if you are so inclined. Perhaps one's gender presentation and responses to those of others are determined by how one thinks (consciously/unconsciously) one ought to look at a given moment. Here it is a question, to a greater or lesser extent, of my taste, which has been formed by a confluence of factors- — environment, knowledge, desire.

In the course of developing this exhibition, an elaborate system of selection criteria emerged, which was modified the more I read, the more I looked, the more 1 spoke, the more I wrote. At fre- quent junctures, I questioned the apparent logic or arbitrariness of my choices. I understood why I did not want to include any photographs that are voyeuristic or sensationalistic in a predatory kind

14

of way, but this exclusion broadened to include intimate or sexualized nudity. The result is a group of highly artificed, social images with a remote, lapidary quality that exudes an exhibitionistic self- delight without, for a moment, indicating any gap in the performance, any self-doubt, any sentimen- tality. How different that is from a quotidian experience of the world, in which your face uncontrol- lably betrays every emotion, where your heart is worn on your sleeve, and your body is an awkward stranger. These photographs, instead, are images of fantasy — they represent the dream of total con- trol, the icy demeanor of mastery, like a femme fatale preserved on film, the classic phallic woman. Most of the photographs in this exhibition and book are characterized by direct address — a figure looks directly at the camera, at you, fixing you with its stare. This is not a subject "captured" on film, this is a subject who is capturing you: you are its other, through which it defines itself with a vengeance. This is a world where to perform is to control. It is a world in which you are who you will be, forever. Even when the address is not direct, your presence is acknowledged. The performer is

Hannah Hdch

Training i Ertuchtigung), u>2s

Photomontage,

11 \ - inches I 28 \ 18.7 cm

Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin

playing to you, smiles and winks at you. There are those who present the picture of seriousness, yet a smirk always remains a split-second away (the moment after the shutter clicks). And there are others who clown, but theirs is a self-absorbed laughter, which you may join if you wish. This spirit of plea- sure and play pervades the exhibition, holding a promise of transcendence (not a taunt), a possibility that you, too, are not trapped in a body, that time can be stilled, that you, too, have the phallus that is power.

Notes

1. During the period in which this exhibition was being developed, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris presented femininmasculin: Le sexe de Fart (October 24, 1995-February 12, 1996). The premises of one of feminin- masculinS five sections, entitled "Identites & Mascarades" (Identities and masquerades), are somewhat similar to those of Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. See M.-L. B. [Marie-Laure Bernadac], "II Identites & Mascarades," in feminin- masculin: Le sexe de I'art, exh. cat. (Paris: Gallimard/F.lecta and Centre Georges Pompidou, 1995), pp. 119-21. Furthermore, the form of my introductory exposition has been inspired by the presentation of feminin- masculin, where the exhibition's premises were presented in wall labels and the catalogue as a series of postulates. Like the organizers of femininmasculin, I would like to underscore the rhetorical nature of my argument.

I )espite these similarities, however, my approach to the material differs markedly. Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose is more historically oriented than the "Identites & Mascarades" section of femininmasculin, and the theoretical apparatus underpinning the show is distinct as well. The present exhibition focuses exclusively on issues of photographic represen- tation, including the use of "found" photo- graphic reproductions in collage. For a thoughtful critique of the heterosexist bias of femininmasculin, and its focus on literal phallic and vaginal imagery, which receive their apotheosis in metaphorical representations of biological reproduction, see the reviews by Juan Vicente Aliaga, Frieze 27 (March-April 1996), pp. 58-59; and Elisabeth Lebovici, "trench Lessons," Artforum 34, no. 3 (March

1996), pp- 34. "9-

Of course, other exhibitions and publica- tions have influenced this project, including Jean-Francois Chevrier and lean Sagne, "L'Autoportrait comme mise en scene . . . Fssai sur l'identite, I'exotisme et les execs pho-

tographiques," Photographies 4 (April 1984), pp. 47-82 (English-language abstract, "Staging the Self . . . Essay on Identity, Exotism, and the Photographic Excesses," pp. 132-34); and James Lingwood, ed., Staging the Self: Self-Portrait Photography 1840S-1980S, exh. cat. (London: National Portrait Gallery; Plymouth, England: Plymouth Arts Centre, 1986).

2. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990).

3. I have frequently been asked to parse Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography. The descriptive subtitle indicates the theme of the show, photographic represen- tations in which the gender of the subject is highlighted. For those familiar with the litera- ture of gender theory, it calls to mind the work of scholars like Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. The flowery title proper reiterates Gertrude Stein's famous motto with an addi- tional R intended to recall Marcel Duchamp's feminine alter ego, Rrose Selavy. The references to Duchamp and Stein allude to the historical basis of the exhibition in between-the-wars Paris. Also, both Duchamp's and Stein's cre- ations have erotic connotations that parallel the gender premises of the exhibition: Rrose Selavy is pronounced like a dictum, "Eros, e'est la vie"; and Stein's line first appeared in a sen- sual poem dedicated to Emily Dickinson. Although gender can be conceived as a form of presentation, it is irrevocably tied to sexuality and desire, and thus, to my mind, the happy confluence of meanings.

In the art-historical literature, Duchamp's drag gesture has been canonized into an act from which all subsequent masquerades are considered derivations. My reference to Stein is intended to complicate that reading, to indi- cate that Duchamp's gesture is not singular, that there are different types of drag, imper- sonation, or gender performance, in various contexts and with diverse meanings.

4. Havelock Ellis, The Psychology of Sex (New York: Ray Long and Richard R. Smith, 1933), p. 255; quoted in Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, No Man's Land, vol. 2: Sex Changes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),

pp. xii-xiii.

5. See, for example, Sigmund Freud, "Femininity, Lecture XXXIII, New Introductory Lectures" (1933), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, i953-i974)> vol. 22, pp. 112-35; see also "Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes" (1925), in Standard Edition, vol. 19, pp. 241-60; and "Female Sexuality" (1931), in Standard Edition, vol. 21, pp. 223-43.

6. For a review of the "great debate" over female sexuality, see Juliet Mitchell, "Introduction-I," in Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose, eds., Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the ecole freudienne, trans. Jacqueline Rose, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), pp. 2off.

7. Joan Riviere, "Womanliness as a Masquerade," International Journal of Psychoanalysis 10 (1929), pp. 303-13; reprinted in Victor Burgin, James Donald, and Cora Kaplan, eds., Formations of Fantasy (New York: Routledge, 1986), pp. 35-44-

8. Jacques Lacan, "The Meaning of the Phallus," reprinted in Mitchell and Rose, eds., Feminine Sexuality, p. 84.

9. Stephen Heath, "Joan Riviere and the Masquerade," in Burgin, Donald, and Kaplan, eds., Formations of Fantasy, p. 57, cites: "Morocco de Josef von Sternberg," Cahiers du cinema, no. 225 (November-December 1970), pp. 5-13; reprinted in Peter Baxter, ed., Sternberg, trans. Diana Matias (London: British Film Institute, 1980); and Claire Johnston, "Femininity and the Masquerade: Anne of the Indies," in Claire Johnston and Paul Willemen, eds., Jacques Tourneur (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Film Festival, 1975),

i(S

pp. 36-44. Perhaps the most influential adop- tion of Riviere's theory was that by American scholar Mary Ann Doane. See her "Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator," Screen 23, nos. 3-4 ( September- October 1982), pp. 74-97; reprinted in Doane, Femmes l-atales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis > New York: Routledge, 1991),

PP- 17-32-

10. The earliest example of the use of Riviere's the-

ory in an art-historical context is probably that of Craig Owens, via Doane. See Owens, "Posing," in Kate Linker, ed., Difference: On Representation and Sexuality, exh. cat. 1 New York: New Museum ot Contemporary Art, 1984), pp. 7-17.

11. In "The Meaning of the Phallus," p. 8s, I.acan notes that "virile display itselt appears as femi- nine." The Lacanian analyst Eugenie Lemoine- I.uccioni explains, "If the penis was the phal- lus, men would have no need of leathers or ties or medals. . . . Display [parade], iust like the masquerade, thus betrays a flaw: no one has the phallus." [La Robe: Essai psychanalytique sur le vetement [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983], p. 34 1; cited bv Heath, "loan Riviere and the Masquerade," p. 56.

Recent publications that examine construc- tions of masculinity encompassing artistic manifestations include Andrew Perchuk and Helaine Posner, eds., The Masculine Masquerade: Masculinity and Representation, exh. cat. (Cambridge, Mass.: Mil 1 ist Visual Arts Center and MIT Press, 199s); and Maurice Berger, Brian W'allis, and Simon Watson, eds.. Constructing Masculinity, with picture essay by Carrie Mae Weems (New York: Routledge, 199S 1.

12. Liz Kotz, "The Body Y'ou Want" (interview with Butleri, Artforum }\, no. 11 (November 1992), p. 85.

13. For Butler's articulation of the hyperbolic, see "Critically Queer," in Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits oj "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993). PP- 223-42.

14. Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination," in Diana Fuss, ed., Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories. Gay Theories (New York: Routledge, 1991). P- 25-

15. "Eonist ," named for the eighteenth-century Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, is Havelock Ellis's term for the transvestite. "Uranian" and "invert" are late nineteenth-century terms indicating the homosexual subject, the first used in literary circles, the second derived from the psychopathology of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and others. Sapphist and Amazon suggested the lesbian. All of these neologisms indicate a disturbance in language, in the sense that the contestation of names and their signi- fications are manifestations of a society's inability to agree on meaning. Note, for exam-