Loud!

Overview

If traditional photographic depictions of women frustrate and annoy you, get yourself down to the Art Gallery of New South Wales between April 25 and July 5. To mark the 40 years that have passed since International Women’s Year (1975), the gallery has dragged some powerful photographs out of storage for a special exhibition. Taken of women, by women, they’re united by their rebellion against mainstream imagery and their dark, funny, distinctive takes on femaleness.

Titled Loud!, the show features works by four artists: two international and two Australian. Yvonne Todd, from New Zealand, draws on the conventions of glamorous studio portraits to create exaggerated, surreal impressions of femininity, complete with wigs, costumes, heavy make-up, acrylic nails and awkward poses. Meanwhile, Japanese photographer Miwa Yanagi places female subjects in fictional contexts, playing with past and future, and youth and age.

On home soil, Anne Zahalka portrays famous actresses as wax replicas, implying that the media’s obsession with air-brushed perfection projects ‘ideals’ that are not only impossible but also rather dull. And finally, there’s a series by Rosemary Laing, titled A Dozen Useless Actions for Grieving Blondes, which turns on its head the notion of the happy-go-lucky blonde bombshell.

Image: Miwa Yanagi Yuka 2000, from the series My grandmothers.