Sarah Charlesworth
Ed 3/3
81.3 x 106.7 cm
The image is not of a geisha but of a male Kabuki actor. In Kabuki, a genre of Japanese theatre that originated in the early 17th century, female roles are traditionally played by cross-dressing men who in the early days were also available for hire as prostitutes. In Kabuki, the color red is traditionally associated with passion, heroism and righteousness.
Charlesworth's gender bending image challenges both our sexual and cultural assumptions, framing the passive, androgynous male as our object of desire.
Literature
Birth Name: Sarah Charlesworth
Born: 29 March 1947, East Orange, New Jersey, USA
Nationality: American
Education: 1969 Bachelor of Arts, Barnard College, New York, NY
Awards: National Endowment for the Arts (1976, 1980, 1983), New York State Creative Artists Public Service (1977), John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Visual Art (1995)
Represented by: Margo Leavin Gallery Los Angeles, Baldwin Gallery Aspen, Galerie Tanit, Munich
Sarah Charlesworth is a visual artist and photographer who has exhibited widely in the US and abroad. With over 50 individual exhibitions, a traveling museum retrospective (organized by SITE, Santa Fe) and presence in many major museum shows and collections, Charlesworth is one of the seminal figures whose work has been instrumental in bridging the gap between fine art and a critical practice of photography. Charlesworth's work has explored issues concerning the language of photography within contemporary culture. In addition to her photographic work, Charlesworth has taught photography for several years in the graduate programs and at both RISD and the School of Visual Arts in N.Y. Charlesworth's work appears in numerous museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum, NY, the Whitney Museum, NY, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MOCA, Los Angeles and the Walker in Minneapolis amongst many others. She is the recipient of two National Endowment grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship.