"It is absurd to divide humanity into men and women. It is composed only of femininity and masculinity."
This text was taken from Valentine de Saint Point's Manifesto of the Futurist Woman, which inspired the curator of this year's Photo50, as part of the London Art Fair 2016, Federica Chiocchetti. Gender in photography is a thoroughly explored theme, but as Federica says, "These words prompted me to look at women and men in relation to one another, instead of focusing on gender as an individual entity."
Federica has brought together 16 artists; 11 of them female, 5 male. They range from the well established to the emerging, and collectively explore gender as a behaviour, a performance, a social construct.
‘Feminine Masculine’ is divided into five sections: ‘He loves me, He loves me not’, ‘Till Death Do Us Apart’, ‘Ennui and Obsession’, ‘Carrying-On without Them’ and ‘Wrap Thee with Fluctuant Winds’. These poetic chapters lead us on a journey from the more subjective explorations of relationships – Elinor Carucci on her intimate relations with her husband, for example – to the more voyeuristic, like Paul Schneggenburger's photographs of lovers asleep taken with a six hour exposure from midnight to 6am.
London Art Fair runs from 20th-24th January, tickets are available here.
Paul Schneggenburger
From the series 'The Sleep of the Beloved'
Taken during a 6 hour continual exposure, Schneggenburger's series trace every movement of two lovers between the hours of midnight-6am, taken from a bed placed in the photographer's studio. This 'nocturnal lovers dance' exposes moments of tenderness, as well as the bumping of backs when one turns away from the other.
Paul Schneggenburger/London Art Fair
Ekaterina Anokhina
From the series '25 Weeks of Winter'
Imprints of grass tendrils on bare skin; a tattoo of a long, hot day spent with a loved one. Ekaterina Anokhina's work creates a powerful poem about arguably the worst disease palpable: lovesickness.
Ekaterina Anokhina/London Art Fair
Francesca Catastini
Happy Together No.1
Catastini, with her series ‘Happy Together’, challenges traditional notions of romantic happiness. Herself and a lover sit on the bed, scantily dressed with the sheets parted, as if about to make love. The highly staged nature of the photograph posits romance as performance.
Francesca Catastini/London Art Fair
Jo Broughton
Egg Shell pink set, from the series 'Empty Porn Sets'
Was this before or after the director called "action" (in more ways than one, we may add)? Broughton's visually pleasing series of porn sets has a colder undertone. This luridly pink room with empty canvasses adorning the walls, and an even emptier bed feels vacant, not sexy.
Jo Broughton/London Art Fair
EJ Major
From the participatory series 'Love is...'
London based artist EJ Major undertook a project which involved taking over 7,000 screenshots, from each second of Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 film Last Tango in Paris. She then hand-delivered these to households throughout the UK as postcards captioned ‘Love is…’, with a pre-paid return address.
The anonymous participants who engaged in the experiment gave their choice of words following the ambiguous opening line. As viewers, we won't know the gender of the respondent, or anything else about them... only their interpretation of what love is...
EJ Major/London Art Fair
Laia Abril
From the series 'Tediousphilia'
One of the video elements to the show, Abril's wryly named 'Tediousphilia', bases itself on enterprising young couples who have set up shop from the comfort of their bedroom to produce on-demand sex performances for cash. The still we see depicts lovers entangled in limby postures. She stares at a screen, awaiting their next request.
Laia Abril/London Art Fair
Natasha Caruana
Upon the Steps, from the series 'At First Sight'
Do you believe in love at first sight? In 2014, BMW Laureate Natasha Curuana embarked on a residency in France, to investigate the concept of "coup de foudre" ("bolt of lightning" in English, and a French idiom for "unexpected event").
Her work takes a more critical, objective approach than others in the show. Influenced by seminal texts by Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and Alfred Kinsey who wrote Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, Caruana isolates her subjects with a striking flash and the result is almost anthropological.
Natasha Caruana/London Art Fair
Elinor Carucci
From the series 'Closer'
One of the more established photographers to complete the line-up, Carucci's series 'Closer' bravely opens the curtains on her relationship with her family. According to Carucci, photography was her first love - before that of a man – and you can tell from this series; bravely intimate, Carucci gives herself away to the camera.
To see the exhibition in full, visit Photo50 at the London Art Fair. Tickets available here.
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