Photo: Francesca Woodman, Untitled, New York, 1979.
On January 19, 1981, Francesca Woodman committed suicide, jumping out of a loft window on the east side of New York. She was 22 years old. Days earlier, she published a pamphlet titled Some Disordered Interior Geometries, designed to look like an antique Italian geometry exercise notebook, which included 16 black and white reproductions, handwritten text, and whiteout pasted over arcane mathematical formulae. Limited to a 500 copy printing, the pamphlet was distributed at Woodman’s funeral, the first and only photography book published during her lifetime.
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Born in 1958, Wloodman grew up in an artist family living in Boulder, Colorado. She began taking photographs when she received a camera from her father at the age of 13. In 1975, she attended the Rhode Island School of Design, studying in Rome between 1977–78 before moving to New York City in 1979.
Francesca Woodman, Self-Deceit # 1, 1978.
During her brief time on earth, Woodman created a profound body of work that featured either herself or female models, often nude and blurred, with their faces obscured, or merging into their surroundings. The women were presented in desolate rooms evoking a decadent sensuality that lurks deep inside the creative impulse. What is real is not always clear, not in art or in life.
Woodman wrote in her personal journal, “Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner…?” Her photographs perfectly convey this transcendent spirit that haunts her work, very much in evidence in, Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel, on view at Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, now through July 31, 2016. The exhibition presents 102 photographs and one video representing most of the artist’s series and themes. The photographs are drawn from museum collections around the world, organized with the Estate of Francesca Woodman and Anna Tellgren, the curator.
Francesca Woodman, From Space, 1976
In her personal journal, Woodman wrote, “I finally managed to try to do away with myself, as neatly and concisely as possible…. I would rather die young leaving various accomplishments, some work, my friendship with you, and some other artifacts intact, instead of pell-mell erasing all of these delicate things.” She is nothing if not precise, just like her photographs that explore that strange netherworld between death and life.
Woodman’s work is deep, dark, and eerie, discovering a beauty in the dark and destructive impulse. Like an epic visual poem, her work offers an entirely new way of considering the inner conflicts of feminine existence. Beauty remains, long after gentilities go, and what we discover is how wonderfully liberating that can be. Woodman’s work took women and considered them anew, free from the expectations of polite society. On January 19, 1981, Woodman made her last diary entry, in which she wrote, “I was inventing a Language for people to see…”
Francesca Woodman, Untitled, 1977-1978
All photos: © George and Betty Woodman
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
