Collier Schorr is no stranger to an art opening. Her 10th exhibition at 303 Gallery in Chelsea titled "8 Women" debuted last night to a large crowd filled with industry darlings and adoring fans. Over her 25-year career, her work has been featured in many of the world's premiere museums and galleries, and among these is a solo retrospective opening next year at the Jewish Museum in New York. Known for her stunning, emotionally charged images of androgynous youth and for her documentary-style portrayals of teen boys in Germany—Collier is one of the few fine art photographers that has seamlessly interpreted her vision into fashion magazine spreads and ad campaigns.
"8 Women" addresses issues of female authorship and desire, utilizing Collier's own fashion images. The show induces a conversation about the female gaze into a debate about female representation—a topic the photographer has had dominion over since the mid-nineties. We caught up with Collier before the opening reception to find out more about her new body of work.
Shannan Elinor Smith: This is your 10th exhibition at 303 Gallery, in what ways has your work progressed since your first show at the gallery?
Collier Schorr: The first show at the gallery that I chose to remember was a sculpture show. Made up of plastic cast baby dresses—white on the outside and graffitied on the inside—it was about femininity looking one way and feeling another. With this show, maybe it was saying the outside is what looks different—that it's a range or spectrum and that I am investing in it with a lot of energy, power, and sexuality that I imagine, project, and glean from working with each woman.
Can you talk about the ways you’ve used appropriation in the past and now in this exhibition?
The first works were appropriated tear sheets from jean campaigns. I xeroxed them onto acetate and sandwiched them between sheets of plexi, wrote all over it and bolted it into a wall. Essentially they were saying how I felt about representation and desire and how 80's feminism and art politics didn't address what female desire looked like, but rather, how to reject the images men desired. I thought it was a huge loophole, I still think it is. It makes no room for what a woman looks like when she is desired by women.
How has using your own past works in this series changed this relationship with appropriation?
It's funny, looking at the oldest pictures and bringing them into a new show, making new prints brings one face to face with a kind of self-nostalgia. Which isn't really a term, just another word for distance that makes the work feel different. As though you were working on something and didn't quite know everything about what you wanted to say. Then one picks it up again and adds it to new work. It's the reason retrospectives must be so satisfying for both the artist and the viewer. You see a start and where that idea or taste or view ends up. They probably feel the least appropriated to me because they were made solely for me, never having been shown.
Who are these 8 women and how did you choose them?
I chose the title before I chose the subjects. I liked it. I liked the specificity of it and knowing I didn't actually have to show "8 women". It came from a combo of Ozen's "8 Women", Fellini's "8 1/2", and Altman's "3 Women". Who identifies as a woman and when was of interest to me. Also the idea that people would try and match bodies to faces, determine both gender or subjects, and consider how people identify [to them]. It is also part of a book project, a kind of preface to a larger book of just women. For a day I wanted to call it "Some Girls" after the Rolling Stones album. I love that album.
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"8 Women" addresses issues of female authorship and desire, utilizing Collier's own fashion images. The show induces a conversation about the female gaze into a debate about female representation—a topic the photographer has had dominion over since the mid-nineties. We caught up with Collier before the opening reception to find out more about her new body of work.
Shannan Elinor Smith: This is your 10th exhibition at 303 Gallery, in what ways has your work progressed since your first show at the gallery?
Collier Schorr: The first show at the gallery that I chose to remember was a sculpture show. Made up of plastic cast baby dresses—white on the outside and graffitied on the inside—it was about femininity looking one way and feeling another. With this show, maybe it was saying the outside is what looks different—that it's a range or spectrum and that I am investing in it with a lot of energy, power, and sexuality that I imagine, project, and glean from working with each woman.
Can you talk about the ways you’ve used appropriation in the past and now in this exhibition?
The first works were appropriated tear sheets from jean campaigns. I xeroxed them onto acetate and sandwiched them between sheets of plexi, wrote all over it and bolted it into a wall. Essentially they were saying how I felt about representation and desire and how 80's feminism and art politics didn't address what female desire looked like, but rather, how to reject the images men desired. I thought it was a huge loophole, I still think it is. It makes no room for what a woman looks like when she is desired by women.
How has using your own past works in this series changed this relationship with appropriation?
It's funny, looking at the oldest pictures and bringing them into a new show, making new prints brings one face to face with a kind of self-nostalgia. Which isn't really a term, just another word for distance that makes the work feel different. As though you were working on something and didn't quite know everything about what you wanted to say. Then one picks it up again and adds it to new work. It's the reason retrospectives must be so satisfying for both the artist and the viewer. You see a start and where that idea or taste or view ends up. They probably feel the least appropriated to me because they were made solely for me, never having been shown.
Who are these 8 women and how did you choose them?
I chose the title before I chose the subjects. I liked it. I liked the specificity of it and knowing I didn't actually have to show "8 women". It came from a combo of Ozen's "8 Women", Fellini's "8 1/2", and Altman's "3 Women". Who identifies as a woman and when was of interest to me. Also the idea that people would try and match bodies to faces, determine both gender or subjects, and consider how people identify [to them]. It is also part of a book project, a kind of preface to a larger book of just women. For a day I wanted to call it "Some Girls" after the Rolling Stones album. I love that album.
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