A few nights ago, I was invited to hear Jill Greenberg give a lecture at the Annenberg Space for Photography. I was pretty excited, having had known her work in the past, such as the End Times series (aka " the crying babies" series), as well as being familiar with her monkey and bear portrait books.
The lecture was about Beauty Culture. This is where I learned she wasn’t just outspoken politically. I would say she is modern day feminist, making some pretty good points and statements about woman being tortured from Renaissance times to now, and comparing woman’s high heels and dresses to medieval torture devices.
Greenberg showed a slide show of her senior thesis called “the female object”. The slide show depicted images of how Greenberg felt a mans eye can distort a womans view of herself. I particularly liked the method of lighting she used. It reminded me of some fo the work done by David Lachapelle and Patrick Ecclesine.
When asked by someone in the audience “How do you justify manipulating an image and playing a part in upholding woman to impossible standards?” she replied "I don’t, I’m a sell out" she went on to say “I have kid, I have a mortgage. If they want to give me a cigarette campaign, I’ll take it.. If I don’t take it, someone else will”. Her honesty was comedic and refreshing.
There were a lot of questions about the controversial 2006 “End Times” series, as well as a picture she had taken of John McCain in 2008 while running for president.
For those of you who do not know what the controversy was over. The End Times series had people up in arms for 2 reasons. 1. Making kids cry for the camera, in which Jill had the kids parents give them a candy and take it away, then give the candy back when the shot was over.. (Hardly anything that would scar a child for life). and secondly, Some felt that the children were being exploited to make a political statement.
The McCain controversy came when Greenberg was hired by The Atlantic to photograph John McCain, for the cover of their magazine. Which she did, and the magazine was happy with the images, However she also took additional photos of him, to portray him in a sinister light, and then posted the pictures on her website.
Greenberg was nice and respectful enough to answer these questions, but I got a sense that she was tired of answering the same questions over and over again, and understandably so.
Jill Greenberg closed her lecture by saying, she was dissapointed that most of the lecturers for the Beauty Culture series were men.
