PHOTOGRAPHY/FEMINISM/VISUAL CULTURE Presenting two decades of work by Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Photography aer Photography is an inquiry into the circuits of power that shape photographic practice, criticism, and historiography. As the boundaries that separate photog- raphy from other forms of artistic production are increasingly uid, Solomon- Godeau, a pioneering feminist and politically engaged critic, argues that the re- lationships between photography, culture, gender, and power demand renewed aention. In her analyses of the photographic production of Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Susan Meiselas, Francesca Woodman, and others, Solomon-Godeau regures the disciplinary object of photography by consider- ing these practices through an examination of the determinations of genre and gender as these shape the relations between photographers, their images, and - their viewers. Among her subjects are the Abu Ghraib prison photographs and the Cold War–era exhibition e Family of Man, insofar as these illustrate photography’s embeddedness in social relations, viewing relations, and ideo- logical formations. “ Abigail Solomon-Godeau is one of the best, if not the best, critical historians of photography in the country as well as one of the most sophisticated and theo- retically astute feminist art historians writing today.”LINDA NOCHLIN, author GENDER, GENRE, HISTORY EDITED AND WITH A FOREWORD BY SARAH PARSONS of Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays “ Abigail Solomon-Godeau is one of photography’s most astute long-standing - contemporary commentators. In Photography aer Photography, she continues the crucial work of examining the situations and stakes of representation. Essays wrien over the last two decades take up case studies as diverse as Cindy Sher- man and Abu Ghraib; Solomon-Godeau reminds us that no image can truly be seen without a consideration of the power structures that shape it. Feminism informs every word of this powerful examination of culture, rigorously specic in its examples, yet expansive in its reach.”JOHANNA BURTON, editor of ’s October Files, Cindy Sherman ABIGAIL SOLOMON GODEAU is Professor Emerita of the Department of His- tory of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including Photography at the Dock: Essays on Pho- tographic History, Institutions, and Practices; Male Trouble: A Crisis in Represen- tation; Rosemary Laing; Chair à canons: Photographie, discours, féminisme; and coauthor of Birgit Jürgenssen. SARAH PARSONS is Associate Professor of Art History at York University. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS | WWW.DUKEUPRESS.EDU Cover art: Cindy Sherman, Untitled , . Chromogenic color print, DUKE x inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York. Solomon-Godeau_pbk_cover.indd 1 2/14/2017 1:54:10 PM Photography after Photography Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 1 2/13/17 4:25 PM Photography after Photography gender, genre, history Abigail Solomon- Godeau Edited by Sarah Parsons Durham and London Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 3 2/13/17 4:25 PM © Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in Korea on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Arno Pro by Copperline Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Solomon- Godeau, Abigail, author. | Parsons, Sarah (Sarah Caitlin), [date] editor. Title: Photography a er photography : gender, genre, history / Abigail Solomon- Godeau ; edited by Sarah Parsons. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identi ers: lccn (print) | (ebook) (hardcover : alk. paper) (pbk. : alk. paper) (e- book) Subjects: : Photography, Artistic. | Photography Philosophy. | Feminism and art. Classi cation: .s (print) | (ebook) | dc record available at hps://lccn.loc.gov/ Cover art: Cindy Sherman, Untitled , . Chromogenic color print, × inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York. Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 4 2/13/17 4:25 PM contents list of illustrations vii preface: May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way Sarah Parsons ix Introduction 1 Inside/Out Framing Landscape (1995) 10 Photography (2010) 107 Wrien on the Body (1997) 27 The Ghosts of Documentary (2012) 123 The Family of Man refurbishing humanism Inventing Vivian Maier for a postmodern age categories, careers, (2004) 43 and commerce (2013) 141 Torture at Abu Ghraib in and out of the media Robert Mapplethorpe (2007) 61 whitewashed and polished (2014) 156 Harry Callahan gender, genre, Body Double and street photography (2014) 171 (2007) 77 The Coming of Age Caught Looking cindy sherman, feminism, susan meiselas’s and art history carnival strippers (2014) 189 (2008) 94 notes 207 bibliography 237 index 249 Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 5 2/13/17 4:25 PM illustrations 1.1 Nan Goldin, Misty and Jimmy Paulee in a Taxi, NYC, 1.2 Nan Goldin, Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1.3 Larry Clark, Untitled, . From Tulsa 1.4 Larry Clark, Booby (om the nd Street Series), . From Teenage Lust 1.5 Still from Chantal Akerman, D’Est, Icarus Films, 2.1 Wilhelm von Gloeden, Ragazzo disteso / Reclining Nude Boy, ca. 2.2 Wilhelm von Gloeden, Terra del Fuoco / Land of Fire, before 2.3 Wilhelm von Gloeden, Le tre grazie / The Three Graces, ca. 2.4 Unknown photographer, Homosexual Male, late nineteenth century 2.5 Eadweard Muybridge, Head- Spring, a Flying Pigeon Interfering. From Animal Locomotion (plate ), 2.6 Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion (plate ), 4.1 “Water torture” woodcut, sixteenth century 4.2 US army specialist Sabrina Harman smiling with child 4.3 US army specialist Sabrina Harman posing over the body of Manadel al- Jamadi 5.1 Alvin Langdon Coburn, The Octopus, New York, 5.2 László Moholy- Nagy, From the Radio Tower, Berlin, 6.1 Susan Meiselas, Playing Strong, Tunbridge, Vermont, 6.2 Susan Meiselas, Lena on the Bally Box, Essex Junction, Vermont, 6.3 Susan Meiselas, Aernoon Tease, Tunbridge, Vermont, Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 7 2/13/17 4:25 PM 6.4 Susan Meiselas, Before the Show, Tunbridge, Vermont, 7.1 Francis Bedford, Pass of Aberglaslyn om the Bridge, No. , ca. stereograph , North Wales Illustrated Series 7.2 Gustave Le Gray, Oak Tree and Rocks, Forest of Fontainebleau, – 7.3 Jean- Baptiste- Camille Corot, Fontainebleau: Oak Trees at Bas- Bréau, or 7.4 Gustave Le Gray, Bas- Bréau, Forest of Fontainebleau, – 7.5 Forêt de Fontainebleau Le Jupiter, chêne de m de circumference 10.1 George Dureau, Baiste with Bow , 10.2 Glenn Ligon, Notes on the Margin of the Black Book, – 10.3 Glenn Ligon, Notes on the Margin of the Black Book, – (detail) 11.1 Francesca Woodman, About Being My Model, 11.2 Francesca Woodman, Untitled, 11.3 Francesca Woodman, yet another day alone i wake up in these white chairs, 11.4 Francesca Woodman, Face, – 12.1 “I felt a pull towards electronic music”: Ellie Goulding at her home in West London, 12.2 Cindy Sherman, Untitled , 12.3 Raaello Sanzio, Portrait of a Young Woman (La fornarina), c. 12.4 Cindy Sherman, Untitled , 12.5 Cindy Sherman, Untitled , viii illustrations Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 8 2/13/17 4:25 PM preface May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way Sarah Parsons Like many other readers, my introduction to Abigail Solomon- Godeau’s work was her article “Going Native: Paul Gauguin and the Invention of Primitivist Modernism” published in the July issue of Art in America. Taking the blockbuster exhibition on Gauguin at the Grand Palais in Paris as her sub- ject, she produced a withering critique of art historical mythologies relative to the heroic, misunderstood genius- artist, French colonialism, exoticism and eroticism, and, hardly least, the ways in which “femininity is conventionally linked, when not altogether conated, with the primitive.” In so doing, she carefully delineated the curatorial and scholarly strategies that conceptually naturalized these formations that produce and reproduce fantasies about cul- tural production. That issue of Art in America was passed to me as an undergraduate by an older student with a “psst, check this out” excitement normally reserved for the exchange of purloined erotica among adolescents. It helped that one of our more conservative professors was among the two scholars Solomon- Godeau chose to represent the essentialist, ahistorical, sexist, and, frankly, inane analy- ses regularly imposed on Gauguin and his artistic output. But the extensive degree to which this essay has been anthologized and cited since its original publication suggests that its devastating institutional and discursive critique resonated widely. The writing is not easy (“adumbrate” is not a word commonly found in Art in America and certainly sent me to the dictionary) nor does Solomon- Godeau go to great lengths to simplify the French deconstructionist theoreti- cal frame from which she drew her lines of argument. Yet the analysis is so speci c in its details and so pointed in its targets that it read as a call to arms, Solomon-Godeau_ALL_FF.indd 9 2/13/17 4:25 PM at least among my ragtag group of young feminists, frustrated and alienated by much of what we were being taught. Reading it felt remarkably like having the curtain pulled back on the Wizard of Oz. Rereading it now, I am reminded of a recent essay by Rebecca Solnit, in which she introduces the term “mans- plaining,” which, as Solnit is careful to point out, is not a universal aw of mas- culinity (although the hubris of white male scholars ponti