annie leibovitz’s ‘women: new portraits’ exhibition opens its doors to the public at fabbrica orobia in milan. the travelling exhibition is a continuation of the photographer’s renowned 1999 collaboration with late writer and filmmaker susan sontag, which primarily explored the roles of women through photographs.
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annie leibovitz first became recognised for her work, whilst working at rolling stone, which was then a young, upstart magazine covering politics and popular culture. she was primarily a photojournalist at the beginning but soon evolved into a portraitist with a distinct style that reflected the intimate relationship she gained with her subjects. leibovitz’s legendary magazine covers include the photograph of a naked john lennon embracing yoko ono, taken just before lennon was tragically killed. she has accumulated a wide range of portrait subjects over the years – several presidents, elizabeth II, athletes, artists, writers, entertainers – and has expanded her repertoire to include fashion photography, still lifes and landscapes.
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in 1999, she and susan sontag collaborated on ‘women’ a book of portraits, on a subject that sontag noted was an ongoing story, a work in progress. it reflected the ‘unprecedented changes in the consciousness of many women in these last decades.’ designboom attended the preview of the ‘women: new portraits’ exhibition in milan, to ask leibovitz how the project has evolved in the last ten years, and what changes she has noticed in regards to how women are represented now.
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‘when women first began in 1999, I was reluctant at first to start the project. I was concerned to take on a subject as large and as broad as women, it was like going out and photographing the ocean. the idea was to go out and to show what women look like now, the roles they play etc. the project is still a work in progress, its not something that can be wrapped up, so I always knew I wanted to update it at some time. I feel its important to see who we are, how diverse we are, how confident we can be, the work we are building, we need to be ourselves. I think we need more understanding and more work on all these issues.’
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‘the original project had all walks of life, a lot of issues were addressed. so for this project I was interested in including women who came to my mind who were either great examples or were present currently in the public consciousness. the plan is to go each new city where ‘women’: new portraits’ will be exhibited and photograph more female figures. the question is how can we show diversity? if you look at the original project in 1999, it had very big bones, so I felt very comfortable just adding 20 to 30 sittings to update it.’
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‘gloria steinem helped me to understand the subject more. at our opening in london she said that ‘there is not enough imagery of women in art that show us as whole human beings. men have been portrayed for a long time, women need to be visualised, imagery of women needs to catch up’ which I felt was true.’
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designboom spoke to annie leibovitz about her view on the rise in popular culture and social media in the last ten years, and its effect on how women are now presented.
‘its been an empowering period for everyone. it originally seemed like a free for all and now it seems like it is sort of settling down. I’m from a different generation and I don’t really use social media but my children do. but I think its all good, you know whats great about being alive for this long, is at first these things seem insane and too big at the beginning, but then they settle down. media and society is very smart, we take the important parts out of it and make it work for ourselves. its taking a while to figure out how it should work, everyone now has a voice, who feels like they need a voice and its up to us as to whether we want to listen or not, but we will get there.’
annie leibovitz women: new portraits exhibition, sponsored by UBS, will be on display from the 9th of september to the 2nd of october at fabbrica orobia in milan.
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
image © designboom
annie leibovitz, new york city, 2012 © annie leibovitz
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