Three Paris Photography Exhibitions Explore Gender and Identity

Three concurrent photography exhibitions in Paris examine gender, adolescence, and identity through distinct lenses. At Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Sofia Coppola curated a selection of Robert Mapplethorpe's work (November 25, 2011 – January 7, 2012), focusing on celebrities, flowers, and soft subjects, omitting his gay and leather imagery, a move criticized for sanitizing the artist's provocations. At La Galerie Particulière, Claudine Doury's series "Sasha" (January 5 – February 26, 2012) captures adolescence as a liminal state, with the titular figure photographed in forests, mud, and water, surrounded by animals like foxes and slugs, evoking fairy tales and nightmares. At Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Dorothée Smith's "Hear Us Marching Up Slowly" (January 27 – February 25, 2012) addresses transgender experience through photography, video, and sound, featuring misty, vaporous images of trans subjects in transition. The video installation references the "Agnes case," a 1950s California clinical study of a transgender woman who self-administered hormones. Smith's work explores gender as performative and fluid, with liquids symbolizing transformation. Additionally, two photobooks from Loco editions are noted: Yves Trémorin's "La Dérivée mexicaine" and Jacqueline Salmon's "MHSD/Déconstruction" about the Superphénix nuclear plant.