Taryn Simon - A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters

I saw this work in the Tate Modern winter last year, and i stumbled across it again the other day when discussing with a friend photographers that we liked. And i have to say that since revisiting the work i feel a different connection with it. Originally in the gallery i feel i was overwhelmed, these large spaces, rooms that lead onto another room, with hundreds of portraits all composed in the same way and lined up in grids that explored heritage and consequence...

 But now when i think about the work, i think about the people more individually. Some portraits in the grids were left blank, and this was where a member of the bloodline was missing - and this depicts the consequence part of Taryn Simons work. Though we cannot control or have any decision on who is in our family by blood, we control the situations in life and have an effect on these things.

But it's not only human bloodlines that Taryn Simon has explored, she also looked at this collection of rabbits. "24 European rabbits introduced to Australia in 1859. Within one hundred years, the rabbit population grew to half a billion. We are looking at 108 rabbits, all destined for a premature death as the subjects of a test to determine the effectiveness of a virus used to control the explosive rabbit population. Some wide-eyed specimens look alert to their impending doom and others, innocently oblivious. Even the pragmatic observer, when faced with man’s control and mis-control of nature may feel their nose twitch. " (taken from Foto8) and this is one piece of the work that has stayed in my mind since seeing the exhibition because of the connection between nature and humans, the roles we play in the handling of lives, as if we are god.

http://www.foto8.com/new/online/reviews/1439-taryn-simon-a-living-man

http://tarynsimon.com/works_livingmanindex.php

Show Studio - Selling Sex Exhibition

The exhibition as the title suggests, is all about sex - but the different thing with this show is that all of the pieces are exclusively from a females perspective. Immediately when we think of work on sex by women, ideas of feminism may come to mind, how women shouldn't be treated as objects nor deemed as sexual objects. Society debates over how women are sexualised, young women especially - in magazines they're forever seen in skimpy clothing - but this is not the way in which this exhibition works.. yes it is feminist - but it seems almost a celebration of sex from the female viewpoint. Some of the work feels as if to say 'hey women can do sex too!'

Installation view

UNA BURKE, RETREAT

SARAH LUCAS, PEPSI & COCKY 

Marianne Maric, Lamp Girls

Rebecca Wilson, Blow Me!

It's an empowering exhibition for women, and filled with delightful pieces of work. It challenges the views of gender roles and sex, and for me made me question why maybe it feels more acceptable in society for a male to create erotic work, and why when women create similar work they are seen in a different, tainted light.

I think its very fair to say that Laura Mulveys writings on the 'male gaze' and such are very connected with this work,  as they question the role difference between male and female when it comes to work like this.

http://showstudio.com/shop/exhibition/selling_sex#overview

selling_sex_receives_a_glowing_four_star_review_in_todays_independent