Barbara DeGenevieve
[Photographer, artist, and curator, b. 1947, d. 2014, Chicago, Illinois.]
As an academic I feel I should intellectualize and theoretically analyze when all I really want to do is let the work take me somewhere, manipulate me, and then rough me up a bit. When it comes right down to it, I only want to spend time with work that makes me think and teaches me something while making my body react.
I am attempting to move away from the exclusionary practices of feminist theory, particularly anti-pornography rhetoric, in order to amplify the discussion about the complexity of pleasure for women.
I often call my current work pornographic—when I don’t, I can always be sure someone else will.
You can assume all photo and video is constructed as a fiction controlled by the person holding the camera and the person who is editing...
In using the style of the “erotic/pornographic” story, I am interested in dismantling stereotypes of an “essential” feminine identity, particularly one of exclusive tenderness and passivity.
