{"id":761,"date":"2018-04-26T13:56:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T13:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/dev\/?p=761"},"modified":"2019-11-23T20:33:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T20:33:47","slug":"ma-realite-revee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/?p=761","title":{"rendered":"Ma r\u00e9alit\u00e9 r\u00eav\u00e9e"},"content":{"rendered":"

Short feature on controversial photographer Irina Ionesco<\/em>
\nZOO Magazine #50<\/a>, 2016<\/h2>\n

Read the PDF<\/a><\/p>\n

For a few decades now, the canon of art history has been expanding to include female photographers. Nowadays, the \u2018men only\u2019 retelling of the past has given way to a more inclusive type of history \u2014 one that acknowledges the decisive contribution of women in all art forms. Think of the \u2018rediscovery\u2019 of a talented photographer such as Francesca Woodman, who did not receive the recognition she deserved until recently. Ma R\u00e9alit\u00e9 R\u00eav\u00e9e [My dreamt reality], the publication accompanying Irina Ionesco’s exhibition at Reflex Gallery, follows this trend. But are there still prerequisites for female artists to join the ranks of the renowned? Ma R\u00e9alit\u00e9 R\u00eav\u00e9e is more than a coffee table book. Available as a limited edition, it can be purchased together with an original print of one of three photographs signed by the artist. It also includes essays by Matthias Harder, chief curator at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, and Pierre-Paul Puljiz, Larry Clark\u2019s producer and documentary filmmaker. A look at the female artists who have been memorialized in art history reveals one striking common feature \u2014 they all seem to uphold the traits still expected of their gender: selfsacrificing (the Frida Kahlo type) and pure, both in morals and politics. (Nazi-sponsored cinematographer Leni Riefenstahl will presumably never be fully accepted into \u2018respectable\u2019 history books.) The lively biographical piece by Puljiz reveals the exceptional, and at times truly tragic, trajectory of Ionesco, who started as a dancer and discovered photography later in life. The female artist who becomes posthumously famous typically adheres to the stereotype of the \u2018good\u2019 woman: her art and life must be exemplary. (For example, there is no female artist comparable to French writer C\u00e9line, whose works are still taught at school despite his antisemitic propaganda.) Ionesco is surely a female artist who does not match the required profile. Her staged photography is seen as uncompromising, and at times even taboo. More problematic perhaps, the artist herself remains unapologetic \u2014 an attitude that arguably does not fit the expected submissiveness of the \u2018good woman.\u2019 Both the exhibition and the book reveal the richness and boldness of Ionesco\u2019s oeuvre – visually and within the context of art history. They feature her work with female adult models \u2014 a \u2018theatrical\u2019 and \u2018neo-surrealist\u2019 world, as Harder describes it in his contribution to the volume. With its orientalist references, baroque mirror plays and uncanny props such as the head of a male dummy, Ma R\u00e9alit\u00e9 R\u00eav\u00e9e<\/em> is as extravagantly alluring as Luis Bu\u00f1uel\u2019s surrealist film Un Chien Andalou<\/em>, and as memorable as Hans Bellmer\u2019s photographs of disjointed dolls. They are visions of playful perversion and gentle role play \u2014 the kind of spirit that would elevate a man, but not so much a woman, to the ranks of the illustrious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Short feature on controversial photographer Irina Ionesco ZOO Magazine #50, 2016 Read the PDF For a few decades now, the canon of art history has been expanding to include female photographers. Nowadays, the \u2018men only\u2019 retelling of the past has given way to a more inclusive type of history \u2014 one that acknowledges the decisive<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-zoo-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}