Unretouched Women, female protagonists

Abigail Heyman, Supermarket, 1971 © Abigail Heyman

Unretouched Women, Women at Work brings together the works of three women photographers. Conceived by Clara Bouveresse, the book and the exhibition at the Rencontres d´Arles present a strong and complex female figure, far from the clichés of a gendered society.

Mid 1970s in the United States. Feminism is in full swing and more women are battling to free themselves. Three American photographers, members of Magnum Photos, each publish a book - Growing up Female, for Abigail Heyman, The Unretouched Woman for Eve Arnold, and Susan Meiselas with Carnival Strippers. Three unique books, emphasizing a complex storytelling and a decidedly feministic approach. “Each of the photographers imagines an elaborate staging to construct a visual narrative where words and images are closely intertwined. Their texts resonate like so many singular voices, from testimonies transcribed by Susan Meiselas to first-person accounts by Eve Arnold and Abigail Heyman, ”says Clara Bouveresse, curator of the Unretouched Women exhibition, at the Rencontres d'Arles, and author of the book.

Each chapter of Unretouched Women combines the works of the three photographers. A description showing the complexity of the themes addressed. “Make-up and staging”, “social conventions unmasked” or even “women at work”, each part presents women from a new angle, highlighting the importance of appearance, or even the talents of women, undermined by rigid social roles. A dynamic dialogue between these committed photographers.

Cover of book by Susan Meiselas, Carnival Strippers, New York, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux 1976

"How are the changing norms and stereotypes that define women transmitted, transformed, and embodied? How can we denounce the shackles hindering women, while offering alternative routes? How can we expose the workings of discrimination without falling into fatalism? How do you find your place when you are a woman without seeing yourself locked into a gender role?», Clara Bouveresse asks. By taking personal photographs, accompanied by excerpts from diaries, Abigail Heyman questions the nature of women, their strength and their beauty. In 1972, she photographed her own abortion, capturing her violently spread legs under the doctor's eye. A poignant image, showing without artifice the sufferings undergone by the female body.

Eve Arnold represents women by refusing any retouching and staging. By photographing anonymous women as well as celebrities, she leads a fight against the conventions of beauty demanded by society. Among her images, striking shots of actress Joan Crawford, her face covered in bandages, show the tedious rituals women have to go through.

For Susan Meiselas, it is in the heavy atmosphere of fairground cabarets she captured. Camera in hand, she discovers the daily life of strippers. Between boredom, violence, sadness and sexuality, the testimonies of these women complete the raw images of the artist. A world as tragic as it is fascinating. Whether they capture the daily tasks carried out by women - synonymous with a gendered society - their natural faces, or the hypersexualization of bodies, the three artists present a strong and complex female figure, far from the clichés of the time. Their works lift the veil on the failings of a patriarchal world and, for once, place women as the protagonist of their own history.