Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) was a photographer who had made over 800 self portraits in her short life span. Only 120 of these have been published. Upon looking at her work, the meaning hides just as she does, and so I have consulted multiple pages on the Tate website, all linked below, as well as Chris Townsend's 2006 book 'Francesca Woodman', edited by the artist's father George Woodman. Her work has been described as the opposite of 'straight' photography, by the likes of artists such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams and other artists alike. This has been suggested because she spent a lot of time in Italy and became more confident in Italian than in English. She also spent a study yeah in Rome, which is likely to have influenced her work. However, because she did study at the Rhode Island School of Design, it's said that "her work does bear similarities of other forms of European and American practise throughout that decade" (Townsend, 2006, pg 9).
As Woodman passed away by suicide when she was just 22, many of her artworks were student projects, much like my own. What we see as the finished product, Townsend suggests, is perhaps just an experiment as a young artist comes to terms with various processes. Her early death also means that she never got to see how how influential and well known her work would become. Some would argue that her death contributed to this success.
Townsend tells us that 'the subject of the work is established as disestablishment, in separating itself from the obvious, and instead proposing itself as equivalent to some other object, to space itself or to the ethereal."
This image, 'Untitled', depicts a wooden door removed from its frame. Its position in the room is rather uncomfortable, as if it shouldn't be able to be able to balance in such a way. Woodman herself is curled up under the door, with only her bottom half visible. There's movement in one of her feet, making the image have a bit more life and flow to it, rather than being completely stationary.
The image offers a lot of space, yet printed small (140 x 140 mm) to create a sense of intimacy between her and the viewer.
On the Tate's website, it says "When asked by her roommate and close friend Sloan Rankin why she was so often the subject of her own photographs, Woodman replied: ‘It’s a matter of convenience, I’m always available’ ".
It also says "Cultural theorist Mieke Bal argues that Woodman’s photographs are not snapshots because the artist was not interested in fixing moments in time. Rather, Woodman was interested in ‘un-fixing’ the subjects of her photographs, typically herself ". She seems to become a part of the space, merging into the environment.
Townsend suggested that 'Woodman is never quite with us, never quite with herself' , which I would agree with. Only part of her is seen, and we cannot identify her as the subject from just her bottom and legs. We only know it's her because of our knowledge of her work.
This image is called ''Space².
Her integration into her environment is a different type than the last image, for Townsend suggests that 'in addition to being something else, Woodman is perhaps trying to be somewhere else'. She leans into something in the image, but we cannot see the reason or where she's going. It's as if she's trying to make herself disappear.
Deborah Levy suggested that "Woodman knows we know she’s there and by constructing techniques to make herself vanish, she knows she makes herself bigger. She makes herself bigger because we are searching for her. The artist, Francesca Woodman, has given us something to find. It’s a dance, a theory (perhaps a Lacanian theory: ‘la femme n’existe pas’), a performance, a provocation, an experiment, a joke, a question."
We can see nothing but her boots clearly, as if they are the only things keeping her stable, pinning her legs to the floor. The rest topples over.
Levy noted that "The boots are there to land this ethereal image. It’s so important to have a grip when we walk, as we have been societally taught to perform, into the frame of femininity – and as we step out of the frame too, into something vaguer, something more blurred. Francesca Woodman, the artist, can move freely in these boots, but they also pull her down. The image would suffer without their presence."
The blur of her body gives us nothing to identify Woodman with, we cannot define her body nor her presence within the image, and I don't think she wants us to. We cannot see her face, meaning we don't know of any facial expressions. The mood of the image solely rests upon the shoulders of the space and the blur of her character.
What looks like a brief image, with perhaps not too much thought due to how simple the components are, may be anything but. On the Tate page for this very image, it says "The relationship between figure and space explored in this image was further investigated by Woodman on the contact sheet from this photography session, over which she drew extra details on the images with a black marker pen. On this particular image she drew a rectangle resembling a door which her body appears to be stumbling through. Writer Isabella Pedicini has noted that on the Space² proofs Woodman ‘moves through the space again and again, crossing it, jumping over invisible barriers that she later draws in by hand with a black pen. In this way, she maps out a space which is mental, imaginary, and constructed by the movement of her own body.’ (Pedicini 2012, p.72.) "
I find it really interesting how she imagines something else to be in the image, yet she doesn't let an audience feast on that information. It's as if it's a half image, not quite complete, but if it was ever 'finished' it would perhaps give too much away and the effect would be lost. Her imagination isn't shared, and so for as long as people know about this image and not the contact sheet annotations, they may not see what she sees in the image.
Townsend proposed that her work could be linked to the Greek goddess Penelope. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus, who left for battle for 20 years. It's said that many wanted her to remarry, with a large number of suiters lining up to be her new husband. She tricked them and put off the remarriage. When he returned, he found that she had been faithful to him and is now seen as the face of Fidelity. One of her tricks to put this off, was to claim she was making a shroud for the burial of her husband's father. She was seen sewing, and claimed she would remarry when it was complete. Yet for three years, every night she would undo her stitching work to set her back again. One of her servants discovered this and reported back to the suitors, however her efforts were incredibly praised.
This reconstructing and remaking of the tapestry, Townsend believes, is parallel to how Woodman "unravelled photography's structuring dimensions of space and time"
I think it's clear to me that Woodman's work will become very influential to my own work. This is very different from the fantasy portraiture I've been looking at from the works of Linda Blacker and Kirsty Mitchell. This work is far less obvious and perhaps less graceful and stereotypically beautiful than what i've already been looking at. I'm interested to explore both aspects, however if I do end up choosing the more fantasy route I can see the underlying messages being linked to the work that Woodman has been making.
Untitled : https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/woodman-untitled-ar00357
Deborah Levy on Woodman : https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-43-summer-2018/francesca-woodman-vanishing-act-deborah-levy
Space² : https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/woodman-space-providence-rhode-island-1975-1978-ar00350
Townsend, C. 2006, Francesca Woodman, Phaidon Press.
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