Untitled, from the Eel Series, Rome

Label

Francesca Woodman’s black-and-white photographs portray the female body as destabilized and fragmented, bringing to light the emotional intensity of internalized experiences. In Untitled, the photographer’s own nude body turns away from the viewer and curls around a bowl containing a coiled eel. The female form pairs with a phallic symbol representative of desire—a possible comment on the erotic male fantasies that shape understandings of femininity in Western culture.

My House, Providence, Rhode Island is part of a larger series in which Woodman appears as a ghost- like presence in a dilapidated house, her physical body blending into its surroundings through physical entanglements and long exposures. Shrouded in plastic, the body is hidden and contained, possibly alluding to feelings of entrapment both physical and psychological.

From the 2022 exhibition Embodied: Artist as Medium, curated by Isadora Italia, Campus Engagement Manager

Course History

WRIT 5, Memoirs of Family, Ellen Rockmore, Fall 2013

WGST 10, Sex, Gender, and Society, Giavanna Munafo, Fall 2013

WGST 37.2, GEOG 41, Gender, Space and Islam, Jennifer Fluri, Fall 2013

NAS 42, WGST 40, Gender Topics in Native American Life, Vera Palmer, Fall 2013

ANTH 31, WGST 36, Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Lauren Gulbas, Fall 2013

NAS 42, WGST 40, Gender Topics in Native American Life, Vera Palmer, Fall 2013

SART 30, Photography II, Fall 2013

SART 29, Photography I, Fall 2013

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States, Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States. Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

SART 17.9, The Photographer as Activist: Making Art Inspired by the Hood Museum's Collection , Virginia Beahan, Winter 2015

SART 76, Senior Seminar I, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2019

SART 30, SART 75, Photography II and III, Virginia Beahan, Spring 2019

SART 29, Photography I, Virginia Beahan, Summer 2019

SART 29/SART 75, Photography 1/Photography 3, Virginia Beahan, Winter 2020

Exhibition History

Embodied: Artist as Medium, Isadora Italia, MALS Class of 2022, Sol LeWitt Wall, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 1–December 17, 2022.

Shadowplay: Transgressive Photography from the Hood Museum of Art, Owen Robertson Cheatham and Friends Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 10-December 8, 2013.

Provenance

Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2013.

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Subjects