Lesbians Seeing Lesbians: Building Community in Early Feminist Photography

Lesbians Seeing Lesbians

Building Community in Early Feminist Photography

September 14 to October 22, 2011

at the

Leslie/Lohman Gallery

26 Wooster Street (between Canal and Grand)

New York, NY 10013

212-431-2609

Open Tues-Sat: Noon - 6pm

http://www.leslielohman.org

In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, the 1970s brought a feminist revolution with lesbians, not always acceptably, to the forefront. In pursuit of personal and political liberation, lesbians photographed each other within an emerging lesbian feminist community, asserting their right to self-representation within a context of straight men, gay men and straight women. They gave widespread visibility to a new social ideal, born of that defining lesbian feminist notation asking, "Since women are no longer defined as accessories to men, what can, and should, a feminist society be?"

Lesbians Seeing Lesbians: building community in early feminist photography focuses on three of the most prominent photographers of this early generation: Tee A. Corinne (1943-2006: St. Petersburg, Florida), JEB (Joan E. Biren [Lyon's Pride member, class of 1966], b. 1944: Washington DC), and Cathy Cade (b. 1942: Honolulu, Hawaii). In addition, this exhibition pays tribute to these pioneering women by showing work of contemporary lesbian photographers including Catherine Opie and Cass Bird that engages and reworks their founding vision in contemporary lesbian life. This exhibition also includes key documents of the lesbian feminist and lesbian separatist movements.