Synopses & Reviews
Films with cross-dressed protagonists and advertisements featuring androgynous adolescents are just some of the evidence of our contemporary fascination with gender and sexuality. Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose provides an art-historical perspective on photography that explores and plays with this controversial, sexy subject.
The title of this book combines Gertrude Stein's famous line, Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, with the name of Surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp's feminine alter ego, Rrose Selavy, pronounced Eros, c'est la vie, or Eros, that's life.
The reproductions include photographically based artworks made between 1920 and 1940 by Cecil Beaton, Brassai, Duchamp, Hannah Hoch, George Platt Lynes, and Man Ray, among others. Also featured are photographs from the past 25 years by such artists as Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Nan Goldin, Jurgen Klauke, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol.
Synopsis
The Guggenheim's classic study of photo-based artworks that question gender identity is back in print at last. This important volume, whose title combines Gertrude Stein's famous motto, -Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, - with the name of Marcel Duchamp's feminine alter ego, Rrose Selavy, features portraits, self-portraits and photomontages in which the gender of the subject is highlighted through performance for the camera or through technical manipulation of the image. In many of the works, photography's strong aura of realism and objectivity promotes a fantasy of total gender transformation. In other pieces, the photographic representation articulates an incongruity between the posing body and its assumed costume. Features work by Cecil Beaton, Brassa', Claude Cahun, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Hach, Man Ray, Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Nan Goldin, Lyle Ashton Harris, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager, Yasumasa Morimura, Catherine Opie, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman, Inez van Lamsweerde and Andy Warhol.