Global Contemporary Lens

Modern Women/Modern Vision Access Guide

Contemporary photographers around the world adapt traditional techniques, explore innovative subject matter, and apply new technologies and processes, such as photo editing software and large format printing. For many of the artists featured here, photography functions in tandem with other mediums. They print still frames from video, chronicle conceptual works and ephemeral installations, or create images that explore the nature and function of the medium itself.

Since the 1980s, artists have challenged the relationship of photography to reality and truth. Many of these artists choreograph their photographs, rigorously staging, costuming, and directing models to construct narratives that intentionally blur the boundary between fact and fiction. Using wit, satire, and imagination—and sometimes their own bodies—they explore issues of identity, race, gender, and class.

I emerged in that incredible moment in the 1980s when all kinds of social questions about subjectivity and objectivity, about who was making, who was looking [were being asked].

Carrie Mae Weems
Color photograph of dozens of thin, white pedestals featuring sculptural busts set behind a rope.

Bank of America Collection
© 2022 Candida Höfer / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Color photograph of a vast tiled hall in the Hermitage Museum featuring six marble statues set against a red wall.

Bank of America Collection
© 2022 Candida Höfer / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Top to bottom:

Candida Höfer (German, born 1944)
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Roma
1990

Hermitage, St. Petersburg
1992

Chromogenic prints
Bank of America Collection
© 2022 Candida Höfer / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Höfer documents the world’s grand museum interiors using a large-format view camera that renders her subjects in great detail. To explain why she photographed when the museums were closed, she said, “What people do in these spaces—and what these spaces do to them—is clearer when no one is present, just as an absent guest is often the subject of conversation.”

Color photograph of a still life arrangement featuring a bowl of precariously stacked peaches on a cutting board. The color of the peaches is a stark contrast to the white background.

Bank of America Collection
© Laura Letinsky

Laura Letinsky (Canadian, born 1962)
Untitled #49, from the series Hardly More Than Ever
2002
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© Laura Letinsky

Inspired by historical still-life paintings, Letinsky creates stark, elegant arrangements of discarded and decaying food, dirty dishes, and rumpled linen. Using familiar subject matter, she experiments with perspective—the odd tilt of a mug that is inconsistent with the head-on view of a fruit bowl, for example. Convincing yet just slightly off-kilter, photographs like this one reward long, slow looking.

Color photograph of a naked woman on her hands and knees. She is collaged onto a painting where she crouches over a large seashell set in a body of water with a shoreline and some trees to the right.

Bank of America Collection
© Carol Espíndola

Carol Espíndola (Mexican, born 1982)
From the series La Atlántida (o la utopía del cuerpo femenino) (Atlantis [or the utopia of the female body])
About 2016
Inkjet print
Bank of America Collection
© Carol Espíndola

Espíndola uses digital technology to create photo-based works that examine Western stereotypes of beauty. She manipulates art historical images of idealized female forms, substituting her own body. Here, she reenacts the birth of Venus in Sandro Botticelli’s fifteenth-century painting. Unlike the open, upright pose in the original, Espíndola crouches down, denying the male gaze access to her body.

Rich color photograph featuring three businessmen standing in an ornately gilded room.

Bank of America Collection
Courtesy of the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery, NY

Tina Barney (American, born 1945)
Father & Sons
1996
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
Courtesy of the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery, NY

Barney helped disrupt the notion of documentary-style photography as objective “truth” by creating pictures that appear natural but are actually highly contrived. This work, from a series depicting Old World aristocracy, features the sumptuous detail, lush color, and compelling composition for which the artist is known.

High contrast black and white photograph of a small building on the edge of a New York City dock. The city skyline is in the background across the river.

Bank of America Collection
© Vera Lutter

Vera Lutter (German, born 1960)
Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn
1996
Unique gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Vera Lutter

Lutter’s negative prints of New York reverse light and dark areas, making normally recognizable views appear uncanny. Using a large hand-built camera with a pinhole instead of a lens, she projects scenes onto light-sensitive paper to create negative prints. The low sensitivity of the paper requires long exposures. Moving objects pass too quickly to register while immobile structures appear in crisp detail.

A surrealist photograph in blue and gray tones featuring a still life of mundane items.

Bank of America Collection
© Estate of Jan Groover, courtesy of Janet Borden, Inc.

Jan Groover (American, 1943–2012)
Untitled
1988
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© Estate of Jan Groover, courtesy of Janet Borden, Inc.

Groover, who initially studied painting, brought the formal vocabulary of abstraction to her photographic practice. The artist’s large-scale still life photograph fulfills her motto: “Formalism is everything.” Rejecting the orderly representation of space typical of most photographs, Groover pursued what she termed “scarier” compositions that skew perspective and distort the familiar.

olor photograph of the interior of a home. In the foreground, a figure sits in a chair facing the camera entirely in shadow. In the background, a blurry figure walks in front of a bright, curtained window to the right of the frame.

Bank of America Collection
© Melissa Ann Pinney

Melissa Ann Pinney (American, born 1953)
My Mother’s House (Glenn, Drew, & Tory)
1994
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© Melissa Ann Pinney

Pinney acknowledges influences ranging from the depictions of the Madonna of her Catholic childhood to photographs by Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus. Candlelight, sunbeams, or camera flash evoke ambiguity in pictures of American domestic life. Unlike some of her contemporaries, she does not orchestrate her compositions. She notes that “the pictures are richer than the things I could think of.”

A color portrait of a young woman who leans back on a blue-cushioned chair and blows a bubble as she gazes to the left of the frame. Her right hand holds a strand of her long hair.

Hellen van Meene (Dutch, born 1972)
Untitled
1999
Chromogenic prints
Bank of America Collection
© Hellen van Meene, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York

A color portrait of a young woman with bleached hair with thick bangs and multiple short braids. She wears a faded yellow sweatshirt and holds a clear plastic heart filled with magenta-pink fuzz.

Hellen van Meene (Dutch, born 1972)
Untitled
2000
Chromogenic prints
Bank of America Collection
© Hellen van Meene, courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York

With their natural lighting and uncomplicated compositions, van Meene’s photographs may appear to be spontaneous snapshots, but she plans them meticulously to suggest the awkwardness and vulnerability of adolescence. “I arrange everything, to the smallest detail, such as the nail polish on their fingers,” she explains. Like a film director, van Meene also asks her models to act out a particular emotion or idea.

A shadowy human figure with slightly distorted proportions with arms outstretched floating in the middle of the frame.

Bank of America Collection
© 2022 Michal Rovner/Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY

Michal Rovner (Israeli, born 1957)
One Person Game Against Nature II. No. 8V
1992–93
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© 2022 Michal Rovner/Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY

For this work, Rovner photographed a person floating in the Dead Sea at dusk from an elevated point of view. She later manipulated the image in her studio, altering colors and abstracting the figure. Through this process, the picture becomes less about a particular place or time and begins to take on a universal meaning.

Headshot of a young girl in a black hijab who looks directly into the camera with dark brown, almost black, eyes. Her mouth is turned up in a very subtle smile.
Headshot of a young girl in a black hijab. Small but colorful embroidery is visible under her chin and in the right-hand side of the frame on her shoulder. She looks directly into the camera with blue eyes and the smirk of a smile.
Headshot of a young girl in a black embroidered hijab. She looks directly into the camera with striking greenish-hazel eyes. Her mouth is set in a flat line.

Left to right:

Céline van Balen (Dutch, born 1965)

Sarah

Untitled

Yesim

1998
Chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum
Bank of America Collection
© Céline van Balen, courtesy Van Zoetendaal Publishers, Amsterdam

Van Balen’s sensitive depictions of Muslim girls from immigrant communities in the Netherlands evoke historical photographs and Northern Renaissance portraits. She portrays the young women against dark backgrounds at extremely close range, highlighting their unique features and creating face-to-face encounters with viewers.

One-hundred black and white prints of the artist displayed in a ten-by-ten grid, mounted as one composition. The artist has a different appearance in each print.

Bank of America Collection
© Tomoko Sawada

Tomoko Sawada (Japanese, born 1977)
ID400 (#1–100)
1998
Gelatin silver prints
Bank of America Collection
© Tomoko Sawada

Many societies accept ID pictures as proof of identity and existence. In this work, Sawada questions whether they are remotely accurate records of either. The conceptual artist used a public photo booth to portray herself as an array of imagined individuals. Sawada notes a gap between who she is and who she appears to be, saying “My appearance could be changed easily, but my personality did not change.”

Color portrait of a young man, casually dressed and styled, standing against a blank background. He has a neutral expression as he looks directly at the camera.
Color portrait of a young man dressed in military parade uniform with a white kepi hat and red epaulettes on his shoulders. He stands against a blank background and has a neutral expression as he looks directly at the camera.
Color portrait of a young male soldier with a buzz cut standing against a blank background. He wears a short-sleeved white uniform and has a neutral expression as he looks directly at the camera.

Left to right:

Rineke Dijkstra (Dutch, born 1959)

Olivier, Quartier Viénot, Marseille, France (A)
July 21, 2000

Olivier, Camp Raffalli, Calvi, Corsica
June 18, 2001

Olivier, Quartier Monclar, Djibouti
July 13, 2003

Chromogenic prints
Bank of America Collection
© 2022 Rineke Dijkstra, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Dijkstra’s portraits of Olivier Silva register his evolution from green French Foreign Legion recruit, through rigorous training in Corsica, and early tours of duty. Dijkstra says, “The idea was to follow a soldier, someone who comes in soft and young, then turns tough. . . but I’m really talking about mental change, not a physical one.”

Vivid color photograph of a young boy sitting on a child-sized, red-cushioned chair playing a video game. Behind him, his mother sleeps on her side, naked, on a red couch.

Bank of America Collection
© Ana Casas Broda

Ana Casas Broda (Mexican, born in Spain, 1965)
Videogame, from the series Kinderwunsch (The Desire to Have Children)
2009
Inkjet print
Bank of America Collection
© Ana Casas Broda

Broda began Kinderwunsch following the birth of her first son, then continued the project through a complicated pregnancy and her second son’s birth. Her dramatically lit pictures reflect her children’s ideas or her fantasies. Both highly personal and universal, this photograph touches on the complexity of motherhood.

Black and white photograph of a mother and daughter standing at a dining room table brightly illuminated by an overhead light fixture. The daughter looks downward at an open book, while the mother, with both hands resting on the table, looks at her sternly.

Bank of America Collection
© Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953)
Untitled (Woman with Daughter), from the Kitchen Table series
1990
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

For her landmark Kitchen Table series, Weems wanted “people of color to stand for the human multitudes.” Through twenty images and related texts, she unfolds a fictional narrative about a woman (played by Weems) and her relationships with a lover, daughter, and friends (all actors). Weems believes all viewers can relate to the familiar domestic dramas portrayed, noting, “I’ve thought, ‘that’s life.’ Everybody has a kitchen table.”

A close-up, color portrait of a brunette woman immersed in water. The top half of her head and half of one hand are visible above the cloudy water.
Color photograph taken from the foot of a bed of a naked woman lying on her side. Only the top of her head and her arms are visible. An ivory sheet floats in the air above her.

Left to right:

Karȋna Juárez (Mexican, born 1987)

Untitled, Oaxaca, Mexico, from the series Acciones para recorder (Actions to Remember)
2013

Insomnia, Oaxaca, Mexico, from the series Acciones para recorder (Actions to Remember)
2012

Inkjet prints
Bank of America Collection
© Karȋna Juárez

Juárez frequently uses her own body as subject, finding inspiration in vulnerability. This group of works arose “from a need to remember a violent act that I lived in my childhood,” she says. Yet Juárez insists her work is not necessarily autobiographical and that it plays with fiction and reality.

Color photograph of a person wearing a white tee shirt and jeans with one hand up to their face as if they are blowing something. A cloud-like form obscures their entire head. They stand in front of a highway and overpass in the midground, and a bright blue sky with white clouds in the background.

Bank of America Collection
© Elspeth Diederix, courtesy Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam

Elspeth Diederix (Dutch, born in Kenya, 1971)
Air
1998
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© Elspeth Diederix, courtesy Galerie Diana Stigter, Amsterdam

Though she initially studied painting, Amsterdam-based Diederix changed direction because the camera allowed her to capture fugitive moments. She wants her photographs to help people see the extraordinary in everyday objects and phenomena. Her pictures capture seemingly improbable scenarios or odd juxtapositions that lend them a surreal quality.

A vivid color photograph of a bedroom scene where everything is a bright, turquoise blue. A woman sleeps under the covers of the bed, while a young boy sits on the left edge. Blazing orange goldfish swim throughout the room, as if in a fish tank.

Bank of America Collection
© Sandy Skoglund

Sandy Skoglund (American, born 1946)
Revenge of the Goldfish
1981
Cibachrome (silver dye bleach) print
Bank of America Collection
© Sandy Skoglund

Skoglund designs, sculpts, paints, and lights surreal environments. She taught herself photography to create lasting records of these temporary installations—accurate images of a fabricated realities. With their intense colors and juxtapositions of unrelated figures, her works often seem like fantasies or dreams.

A color photograph of a woman with short, dark hair sitting in the center of a cot with her back towards the viewer. She is in a stark concrete-walled building with a dirt floor, with a stack of hay to the right.

Bank of America Collection
© Liza May Post

Liza May Post (Dutch, born 1965)
Under II
2000
Chromogenic print
Bank of America Collection
© Liza May Post

Post creates film sets, choreographs scenes, and directs actors as she films and produces still photographs from her movies. In her existentialist film Under, five people confined in a cellar-like space attempt—unsuccessfully—to communicate with each other. Post says, “In films you are required to sit through hours of detail, but the feeling of a film can be captured in a single minute. I am interested in that one moment.”

Modern Women/Modern Vision: Works from the Bank of America Collection has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program. This exhibition is presented with generous support from the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS4.