Her gaze is a public gaze, not an intimate one. Her portraits are not as much about seeing the individuality or uniqueness of the person who is their nominal subject as they are about establishing a look or affirming a concept. The photographs in Women convey that most women are strong, beautiful and, if they work hard enough, financially successful. The very nice female docent who directed the exhibit tour talked about how the women in these photographs, as well as the photographer herself, are powerful role models for girls.
Not role models for all girls, however. I found a certain integrity, and a certain image, missing.
Most of the portraits are of single subjects (Hillary Clinton, Katherine Graham, Li'l Kim); there are clusters of work colleagues (five coal miners, three journalists) and group shots of particularly female social groups (bridesmaids, the Kilgore Rangerettes). There are several dual portraits (mother and daughter, pairs of sisters or friends). There's only one man, way off in the distance behind former Texas Governor Ann Richards and a rifle-toting pal of hers. The only pair relationship not represented in this show is the relationship between lesbians.
This is a particularly significant omission when you realize that Susan Sontag, the author of the catalogue essay for Women, claimed in a New Yorker article that she had never been closeted about her lesbianism. This article was published as a pre-emptive strike before the appearance of an unauthorized biography that recounted Sontag's history of having lesbian affairs and then denying them. On the contrary, Sontag claimed, her lesbian relationships had been "an open secret" for years. (Last May, reports surfaced that Leibovitz--at 51--is pregnant. While she is remaining mum about the child's paternity, it is expected that Sontag, her companion of many years, will help raise it.) With all this forthright openness, then, why does this major exhibit about women without men ignore the existence of lesbians?
Fashion photographer Cecil Beaton knew part of the answer when he said, "Fashion photography is an insidious profession.... It is up to the fashion photographer to create an illusion... it makes the observer see what he should see." Leibovitz's portraits, like other effective propaganda, slant information to make a one-sided argument. Martha Stewart is photographed out in a golden, autumn-nearing field, leaning over the back of a pickup truck. Country girl, the image says; the caption describes her as a CEO. Oprah Winfrey, in a gorgeous coat, sits on the steps of the porch of a rundown shack in Kosciusko, Mississippi as if she's still an everday down-home sistah, rather than one of the most wealthy and powerful women in America. Even the not-famous subjects, like the pretty, spotless farmer, Trini Campbell, and her daughter, have a kind of domestic grandeur to them. These portraits, like the celebrity photos, are carefully edited advertisements for currently accepted forms of female heroism.
A few photographs in this exhibit stand apart from the others, including two portraits of battered women with their faces scabbed and bruised, their eyes swollen shut. In these portraits, unlike in the bulk of the work, the subjects' faces occupy most of the pictorial space. You can see they're not celebrities, but humans--believable, un-iconic individuals.
Leibovitz has been responsible for creating some of the best known imagery in current popular culture. It's a shame her icon-making is too often about how she wants her women to appear in the world, rather than how diverse and complex we really are. If this show is partly meant to advertise the empowerment of women, the absence of lesbians is a cowardly irony.
