Object number2022.26.2
Women Are Beautiful
Portfolio/Seriesfrom the series SCUMB (Society for Cutting Up Men's Books) Manifesto
Date2021
Artist
Justine Kurland
(American, born 1969)
Author
Garry Winogrand
(American, 1928-1984)
CultureAmerican
MediumCollage of cut printed paper on a hardcover book
DimensionsImage: 18 1/4 x 7 7/8 in. (46.4 x 20.0cm)
Framed: 23 1/2 x 13 5/16 x 1 3/4 in. (59.7 x 33.8 x 4.4cm)
Framed: 23 1/2 x 13 5/16 x 1 3/4 in. (59.7 x 33.8 x 4.4cm)
Credit LineGift of James Kloppenburg, class of 1977
On View
Not on viewPeriod21st c
Classification(s)
SignedOn exterior book spine, signed on the exterior spine in silver colored ink: J Kurland
MarkingsOn cover, embossed in silver colored ink: Women are Beautiful; on spine: WINOGRAND WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL LIGHT GALLERY
Vassar Exhibitions
Exhibition HistorySCUMB Manifesto, Higher Pictures Generation, Brooklyn, New York, March 13 - May 1, 2021Label TextRecognizing collage as an inherently radical and feminist act, Justine Kurland created a series of collages made of pieces cut from photobooks in her personal library. This project emerged from her effort to purge around 150 books featuring the work of straight, white men who have long dominated the canon of photography history—a project she’s referred to as “a psychic spring cleaning.” Kurland used reproductions of the work of male photographers as raw material for her collages. This one borrows its title from its source, the popular monograph Women Are Beautiful (1975), featuring the work of American photographer Garry Winogrand. Kurland reconfigures fragments of Winogrand’s pictures to create a composition in which women’s bodies merge with objects and animals and morph into abstract forms. This collage was reproduced as part of Kurland’s own photobook, SCUMB Manifesto (2022), an homage to Valerie Solanas’s feminist treatise, S.C.U.M. Manifesto: Society for Cutting Up Men, written in 1967. The title of Kurland’s book expands on Solanas’s, naming this series as the Society for Cutting Up Men’s Books—a call to action for fellow artists as much as it is a culmination of her project.
DescriptionCollaged, abstracted forms of women's body parts against a plain white background.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge.
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