Tag: harley weir

Harley Weir – Klara Kristin for Calvin Klein (2016)

Unless you reside under a rock, you’ve heard of the furor surrounding this image.

I’m normally the last person to defend haute couture edgy ad excess but in this case, I’m more than a little befuddled by the mass concern fapping fit this is causing.

While I’m not exactly a Harley Weir fan, per se, I have warmed to her work over the last few years and I know unequivocally that she’s no slouch when it comes to conceptual acumen.

There’s always going to be an ultra fine line between ‘edgy’ and ‘exploitative’. As a form, the so-called upskirt image is enormously problematic as it usually involves a complete lack of respect for consent.

There are those who will argue that this image makes a mockery of all the efforts and activism to shine a light on the problems women face because of persistent and pervasive street harassment. Honestly, I think that response is actually thoroughly lazy and intellectually disingenuous.

Yes, this resembles any of thousands of upskirt images. But there are some notable differences. The association with upskirt is implict–the viewer will make that leap independent of the image. But consider all the ways this image is different than standard upskirt fare.

Let’s ignore the text for the time being. The subject in this frame is standing with her legs apart, leaning forward slightly and making eye contact with the camera. Unlike surreptitious upskirt shots, the subject is aware, consenting to and participating in the production of the image–I mean there’s no way during an ordinary day that she’d stand like this, the reason she’s standing like this here is to straddle the image maker and her camera.

In case there was any doubt, there’s added text to make sure no one gets the wrong idea–I flash in #mycalvins. Note: that the implicit assumption inherent in the form is that this is an upskirt image; thus the subject is passive and unaware. That’s not the case here. But to obliterate any sort of ambiguity, the assumption is turned on its head by making the subject active in the exchange–it’s not upskirt, it’s flashing.

Next, the objection that the subject’s haircut is intended to make her look pubescent is countered by text identifying the model as Klara Kristin–who is 23, a grown ass women by any known metric. Further, she appeared in my sworn mortal enemy Gaspar Noé‘s latest ‘cinematic’ shit show Love (where Kristin engages in explicitly graphic unsimulated sexual intercourse on screen).

Lastly, the objections that it unnecessarily sexualizes her is actually aggressively countered by the actual grammar of the picture. Yes, we can see up Kristin’s skirt but she’s also aware of and there’s reason to believe that she’s consented to this sort of picture being taken even without the text. But the most stunning oversight of all is that yes, while her underwear is ostensibly the focus of the image, note that the point of sharpest focus is actually her face–and that runs counter, from the standpoint of visual grammar, to any of the knee-jerk objections that get tossed towards this work.

However, what’s most telling for me is Weir’s response.

So I think it’s stupid and slut-shame-y and dumb to argue that men are going to see this and it’s going to fuel more aggressive harassment. It’s like arguing that it’s not rape culture which fuels sexual assault, it’s clearly got to be porn that inspires men to rape. And sorry, but I’m done with that bullshit, specious, critically weak tea noise.

Source: nomodelsmag.com

Harley Weir – [←] Agata for Baron Magazine (2014); [→] Greta Varlese for Self Service (2015)

I was not especially fond of Weir’s work, initially–it came across as frivolous, trite even.

Over the last year, my thinking on the matter has shifted; the mechanism of that shift was not solely motivated by the maturing of the work so much as the way that Weir has slowly but steadily improved by increment.

That’s an unusual progression to witness. Usually, you have someone who is making good work who disappears for a bit and then explodes back onto the scene with some skull cleaving next level shit. (Case in point: Jacs Fishburne, who has going from demonstrating obvious talent two years ago to sharing some fucking profoundly inspired and technically accomplished work.)

The sort of quantum leap tends to be the exception and not the rule. So it’s refreshing to see an artist to present such a public face to the false starts and failures that are informing behind the scenes growth in perspective and conceptual acuity.

It’s interesting to me that the now seemingly defunct Baron Magazine’s stated goal was something along the lines of exploring the space between pornography and art.

Overlooking the fact that there isn’t a proverbial no man’s land separating art from pornography, so much as a venn diagram overlapping, It’s interesting to see the image of Agata in that context. Why? Well, although she is nude, she is turned away from the camera (ostensibly also from the viewer). She’s undressing but in a way that is both sexy and awkward–she seems restrained by her clothing, in a way. There’s also the lurid 70s porn palate, super saturated red, pale rose and washed out blues. The phone on the wall, although distracting is a really nice touch that ends up selling the image.

In the second image, things on the surface appear simpler: a model in a fashionable sweater and tartan print skirt. The ¾ profile of the first image is shifted to 7/8 back to camera. The frame lines are tighter–below the eyes and mid-thigh. It’s obvious that Greta is positioned in front of one of those slightly marbled photo paper backdrops. The clumsily presented clothing as physical restriction theme is revisited… only this time the clothing is presented as something almost interchangeable with high end bondage gear. The positioning of her hands hikes up her skirt revealing a centimeter less of the cleft between her legs than would be pornographic.

With so many young women making work on the fringes of fashion and erotica, there’s a lot of talk about developing a female gaze to counter Berger’s art historical male gaze. I’m highly critical of this trend–mainly because the people who are most emphatic about claiming it really do very little in their work to justify their claims. But I think the key difference between the above images is the former is made–probably unintentionally–to cater to the male gaze. The latter won’t necessarily fail to appeal to the male gaze so much as to see it as erotic (and I would argue it’s actually far more erotic in concept and execution than the former is) requires a certain acculturation in an experience of visual culture that is decidedly feminine.

Source: harleyweir