â┚¬Å”Working for Rolling Stone I sort of built who I am,â┚¬Â photographer Annie Leibovitz once observed during a Time magazine interview. â┚¬Å”I learned, at a very young age, that what I did mattered.â┚¬ÂÂ
Photographs are magic in their ability to freeze a moment in time. A gifted photographer can translate that moment in an image that will live within our psyche for longer than we are aware. Consider a Rolling Stone cover shot by Leibovitz named â┚¬Å”Best Magazine Cover from the Past 40 Yearsâ┚¬Â by the American Society of Magazine Editors in 2005. It depicts John Lennon, vulnerably naked, wrapped around the love of his life, Yoko Ono. You can picture it in your mind, no doubt. Five hours after this iconic picture was taken, Lennon was assassinated. Rolling Stone published the cover without a headline, without words save their name.
What Annie Leibovitz does, matters.
Lakeland's Polk Museum of Art (PMA) is hosting â┚¬Å”Annie Leibovitz: Women,â┚¬Â a touring exhibit of more than 60 photographs that originated as a book project. The book, Women, was published by Random House in 1999â┚¬â€Âthe exhibit premiered at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. the same yearâ┚¬â€Âwith an essay by intellectual Susan Sontag, Leibovitz's partner from 1989 until Sontag's death in 2004.
â┚¬Å”One thing that happened with the book is Annie made it clear to anyone that she was shooting, that she was doing this book project. She wanted any kind of assignment that she could get of women to be used in magazine or in advertising, but that she could also use secondary short, or other shots, for the book,â┚¬Â said Tim Hossler, former in-house art director for the Annie Leibovitz Studio, speaking at the PMA opening on April 2.
To illustrate his point, Hossler presented a photo of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in a Got Milk? ad shot by Leibovitz, then a different shot from the same photo shoot. Both photos are arresting, though the first has an air of milk mustachioed whimsy, and each has intelligibly different purpose: one to sell a product, the other to glimpse the strength of these beautiful women. A photographic series of showgirls Leibovitz shot for The New Yorker served as the basis for Women. A photo in color pictured the performer in full costume, a corresponding black and white photograph revealed the woman in her everyday life, as a mother for example.
Among the images are well-known women such as Betty Ford, Elizabeth Taylor, Oprah Winfrey, and Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor (the judges appear in the photograph together, but were shot separately, apparently refusing to sit together). These luminaries share wall space with women who are not well known, but their contribution to the world is celebrated through Leibovitz's lens.
While attending the San Francisco Art Institute, Leibovitz studied painting, but one of her teachers introduced her to photography and she was hooked. She continued to develop her skills for a few years, before walking into Rolling Stoneâ┚¬â€ then a brand new publicationâ┚¬â€Âwith her portfolio. It was there that she cut her teeth and gained a reputation for portraiture. She credits photojournalism with helping to mold her unique eye; being placed to the back of a crowd, she would snap a picture of an exhausted Dan Rather waiting for the President, for example. As her career progressed, demand for her work grew, even creating a rivalry for her attention between Vogue and Vanity Fair. Leibovitz enjoyed a trusted relationship with the Clinton White House to the point that she turned down a gig to shoot Monica Lewinsky. A similar relationship has developed with the Obamas; she shot the official family portrait.
In 1989, Leibovitz was asked to photograph Susan Sontag for a bookcover, and the two fell in love. Ms. magazine cofounder Gloria Steinem remembers initially being surprised by the pairing, then feeling it made perfect sense, Leibovitz had a different reaction: â┚¬Å”What the hell is she doing with me?â┚¬Â The two remain togetherâ┚¬â€Âinterestingly they never lived together, but had apartments within view of each otherâ┚¬â€Âuntil Sontag's passing from leukemia. Due to the so-called death tax, taking over Sontag's estate sent Leibovitz into a much publicized debt, forcing her to sell negatives (among other extremes), and making her a distressing example of marriage inequity in our country.
â┚¬Å”When I look at Annie Leibovitz's photographs, kind of a portrait of America through all these peopleâ┚¬â€Âa very egalitarian view, very interesting viewâ┚¬â€ÂI think about women in this world who don't have the right to vote, can't speak, can't work, aren't allowed to walk out of the house, drive cars, uncover their faces,â┚¬Â outgoing PMA executive director Daniel Stetson told members at the exhibit opening. â┚¬Å”Don't forget that when you look at this show, when you see these proud women.â┚¬ÂÂ
The Corcoran Gallery of Art approached Leibovitz about doing this exhibit while she was in the middle of her book project. She wanted to make the exhibit different from those of the pastâ┚¬â€Âshe had done the small prints, framed and matted. For â┚¬Å”Women,â┚¬Â she wanted to create a sense of immediacy and intimacy for the viewer; the prints are large and unframed with nothing between the viewer and subject. Interestingly, at the time the exhibit was created, despite using a printer who was on the â┚¬Å”cutting edge,â┚¬Â the technology didn't exist to make the prints the size Leibovitz wantedâ┚¬â€Â3' X 4'â┚¬â€Âso the viewer will notice seams in the photographs where pieces were joined. In his position as in-house art director, Hossler assisted Leibovitz each step of the way, including creating a scale model of the exhibit, using his architecture background.
During his opening night remarks, Hossler shared the names of two women you won't find in the book; Mother Teresa and Princess Diana were each scheduled for photo shoots at the time of their deaths. Their absence from Women serves as poignant proof: what Annie Leibovitz does, matters.
