Henry Gilpin. . .
(Continued from Page 10)
of the varieties of women in the world, but by its em
phasis on glamor and fashion it admits the exploitive
charges of the feminists.
In too many sections of the exhibition the diversity of
Woman is not shown in the photographs, but in the
captions printed at the back of the catalogue. The singer
Mahalia Jackson is shown next to a French night-club
performer in die section “Her Voice”. The photographs,
however, are visually the same as those of other sec
In the unfortunate tradition of too many
photojoumalists, Pawek was unable to resist adding
words in the end, and his explanatory words define his
point of view towards women as often as they confuse it.
He says that the art of photography does not distinguish
between beauty and ugliness, but the sections of
beauty—“Homage to Beauty”, “Figurines of Fashion,”
“Mermaids”— outnumber those dedicated to ugliness.
Too often his descriptive phrase has no relationship
to the photographs presented. The panel labeled “The
Natural Ones” has four photographs, a close-up of a
French woman, a small Indonesian girlv a Portuguese
woman working in a field, and a woman from Haute
Volta standing beside a river. The images don’t conflict
with each other, but the ambiguous descriptive phrase
limits their possible interrelationships.
Again, in the opening photograph of “A Child is
Born”, the importance of two old women in a window is
defined by the phrase rather than the photograph.
Pawek does not allow the viewer to bring his own ex
perience, his own interpretation into the viewing
process. He recognizes the visual nature of the
photographs, but can’t resist adding words, and his
audience makes no objection.
It is discouraging to find that in an age when we are
being bombarded by images from all sides, so few
people are concerned with the quality of those images.
But perhaps it is asking too much for a society to be
aware of the quality of one of its communications media,
when it is only now becoming aware of the quality of
basics like air and water.
The exhibition draws people who would not normally
go to an art museum; the images the general public sees
come from television, newspapers, magazines, and bill
boards, not fine photographic prints. The fuzzy, muddy
images of Woman are like those found on television and
in newspapers. If this is all people know, they cannot be
expected to object when an “art exhibition” looks like a
combination of the women’s page and “Wild Kingdom”.
This is what Woman is: a giant magazine, a combined
issue of Vogue, Life, and National Geographic; a
Warholian visual assault crated up and shipped to art
museums all around the world.
Pawek’s first exhibition did extremely well, showing
to 3.5 million people in 36 countries. Judging from the
response in Eugene, Woman will be as successful. Last
Sunday over 500 people visited the museum, more than
three times the normal Sunday attendance. Since the
exhibit has so little to offer as artistic experience, its
popularity must lie in its content alone.
An informal, unscientific poll at the museum en
trance revealed that most people liked the show, and
liked it because it showed so many different kinds of
women, so many different activities. The recent
awareness of the emergence of women’s rights un
doubtedly accounts for some of its popularity, but those
expecting a feminist statement will be disappointed.
In fairness, it must be pointed out that the exhibition
was assembled four years ago, and the view in Germany
in 1968 cannot be expected to totally satisfy the demands
of the United States today. The exhibition is descriptive
John Schneider (Viet Nam)