Being a man with a camera is increasingly a loaded profession. We sat down with artist Richard Kern—no stranger to transgression—to discuss the difference between the male and female gaze, Petra Collins, art trolls, and much more. By Chloe Sariego. Illustration of Kern by Maggie Dunlap.
Continue reading “Richard Kern on the Gaze in the Instagram Age”
Sure, everyone knows about Georgia O’Keefe’s vagina flowers, but she’s not the only artist who depicted the power of the pussy. Here is a list of artists who have exhibited vaginas in all of their glory, from Judy Chicago to Rokudenashiko. By Kristen Cochrane. Continue reading “9 Artists Who Depicted the Power of the Pussy”
Kristen Cochrane talks to Anna Collins about The Period Power Project, a collective of women working to bring menstrual cups to a town in Columbia.
Main image of the Period Power girls, by Hayley Elsaesser.
Last summer, artist Petra Collins published an art book called Babe—a curated book of artwork by female artists of her choosing, with a forward written by Tavi Gevinson. The bright and beautiful book deals with femininity, sexuality, and teenage life, and you can see a more extensive sneak peek of it here. Below is my contribution to the book, which is my personal “Life To-Do List”. Feel free to steal some of my goals :) – Karley Sciortino
I wrote an essay for the current issue of Purple Magazine about Bimbo Feminism and femininity as parody. P.S. Bimbo Feminism is officially my favorite phrase. xo Karley Continue reading “Bimbo Feminism: A Tale of Identity”
… and maybe just your life in general? Read my new Breathless column for Vogue to find out. This week, I weigh in along with the wonderful Petra Collins. Read HERE :)
The gurls: a multilayered selfie by Petra Collins
I was recently part of a round-table discussion about modern feminism and pop culture for Wonderland mag. Talking with me were three amazing ladies: artists Petra Collins and Phoebe Collings-James, and sex writer Tea Hacic-Vlahovic (aka “Sugar Tits”). You can read our conversation below. Tea wrote the intro :)
Phoebe, Karley and I met for the first time in Milan several years ago, when we were less blonde, more fat and Petra was still in diapers. We’ve collaborated with each other overseas but this is the first time we’re all together in Petra’s apartment in NYC (because hers has a stripper pole). It’s an important moment, like when Geri left the Spice Girls.
Karley Sciortino is the brain behind Slutever. She’s written and made videos for magazines like Purple, Vice and Dazed, is currently writing a column called “Breathless” for Vogue, and has interviewed all your favorite porn stars. Phoebe Collings-James hates when people mention her looks before her work, but she’s so beautiful you don’t want your boyfriend to see pictures of her until you have to tell him that story of when you bought hair extensions in London and saw her face on the package. She could be a supermodel but instead she’s a successful artist, using sculpture, illustration, performance, video and mixed media to provoke viewers into existential crisis. You can find her blogging on CUNT TODAY between exhibitions and probably fighting crime at night. Petra Collins is the new it girl of photography, if “it” stands for “incredibly talented.” She recently gained fame for her menstruating vagina t-shirt and a self-portrait featuring pubic hair which caused worldwide hysteria, but mostly she’s known for taking photographs that make you wish you could go back in time and attend whatever high school exists in her mind. I’m Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, known as “Sugar Tits” on Tumblr, the columnist for Vice and Wired Italy who makes too many fart jokes and an above-average Tweeter, according to my mom.
Tea: Have y’all seen Gaga’s new video? It got millions of views the first night and half were mine. She’s the only celeb I’m jealous of after Rihanna.
Phoebe: Rihanna is incredible because she just has fun, doesn’t give a fuck, and also talks openly and honestly about sex and why girls should use condoms. She doesn’t beat around the bush, she’s like, ‘make sure you’re respecting yourself and having a good time, but also be protected.’
Karley: Without being like, “wait for the right person!” It’s an important message–we all know we should be safe, but we’ve also all been in the situation of, “fuck, I forgot to use protection again.”
Phoebe: I don’t think I’ve ever done that sober.
Tea: I don’t think I’ve ever had sex sober! Unprotected sex is like drunk-eating: “I’m going to hate myself tomorrow but I don’t care, ha, ha!” I’m always worried I have some disease, regardless of getting tested.
Karley: Sexually successful women should worry about that! There aren’t enough good sexual role models like Rihanna.
Petra: Just listen to Rihanna’s lyrics. She says, “I love it, I love it, I love it when you eat it” over and over again. I made a piece dedicated to that for my solo exhibition.
Karley: I’m writing an article about compulsive sexual behavior and talking to this psychologist about how the media never shows hypersexual women having happy endings. The slutty character in movies always gets punished–she either gets murdered, raped or ends up alone. The harlot is never the hero.
Tea: And that often proves to be true in real life. Like the Duke porn star who got ousted by another student and responded by writing eloquent letters about why she’s empowered by sex work and how it’s unfair that people watch “college girl” porn but don’t want those girls in college. She had to drop out because she was getting death and rape threats.
Phoebe: I participated in a talk recently about Page Three, to discuss if it should exist. A woman on the panel teaches preteen boys and asked them about the girl in an issue and they said, “I’d bang her and ditch her, she’s hot but not a girlfriend,” and that’s so problematic.
Tea: It’s a classic double standard. He’d never date a stripper or prostitute but he frequents strip clubs and prostitutes.
Phoebe: Has writing about your sex lives and using sexuality in your work affected people you dated?
Petra: I modeled for Richard Kern a bunch of times and I remember when this one bondage photo came out, my ex boyfriend was not happy at all. He shamed me so hard, like, “this makes me less attracted to you because everyone can see it.” He was mad because it wasn’t just for him.
Karley: I surround myself with highly intelligent, liberal guys and I wouldn’t date someone who doesn’t support what I do. I feel the problem is those who don’t know me. Everyone knows I’m a sex writer and have seen pictures of me naked, but most of them have never read anything I’ve written. In a recent piece about me in the Sunday Times, the first paragraph’s like, “she’s peed on guys, had sex with a Hasidic Jew and been a dominatrix!” I know it’s all true but so is, “she wrote an in depth piece about transgendered oppression.” They didn’t add that because it’s easier to just say I’m a wild ho.
Phoebe: Have you seen Nymphomaniac I? I met one of the actresses and she said all the hype was terrifying her parents so she just made them watch it and when they did, they understood it and were proud of her. The idea we have of things we don’t know is always more extreme.
Karley: Nymphomaniac is a good example of a woman who’s hypersexual and ashamed about it. She’s telling her life story and feels so guilty. The guy she’s talking to asks why, stressing that she just went after things she wanted and got them. She insists she hurt people along the way, which is true, but if the anecdote were, “I’ve been ruthless in my career and screwed people over but now I’m successful,” that narrative wouldn’t have been so shameful.
Tea: I didn’t watch that because I feared it might send troubling messages and piss me off. Like, why is it that in GIRLS the only likable characters are boys?
Phoebe: Lena gets so much criticism. Last year some magazine wrote a headline, “the New Face of Feminism” and under it was the cast of GIRLS. That’s when a black blogger started #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen. I don’t think she was blaming Lena Dunham, but she was a part of it. What’s interesting is it didn’t turn into a huge fight. Everyone’s response was really eloquent.
Karley: So it was about how women of color are often excluded from “mainstream” feminism.
Phoebe: They talk about class as well. GIRLS didn’t do anything wrong but I felt like Lena started reacting to the pressures to make it more multi-cultural and when she did it became even more offensive. I don’t think she should have been criticized in the first place because she made the show based on her life and about a very specific group of people.
Petra: It’s almost worse when there’s a fake multi-cultural situation. It often makes caricatures of people.
Phoebe: If you’re making a sitcom it should be diverse but if you’re trying to tell a real story that’s going on it should be told as it is.
Karley: And it’s a story about annoying, white, rich girls!
Petra: They’re horrible characters and they’re supposed to be.
Tea: People should learn to step down rather than get defensive over something they don’t know. Like when Femen’s all, “be free, take your clothes off!” I was always naked in Milan but nobody was going to kill me for it. You can’t just tell someone to be free when you don’t understand what freedom means to them.
Phoebe: Experience is valid. You can still bring that into critique but essentially you can’t tell someone that it doesn’t feel a particular way to walk around in their shoes.
Karley: When people argue about whether something is offensive or racist, if the person experiencing it feels it’s offensive, it is. There’s no reason why people would want to create false oppression. Not everyone’s struggle is the same. The struggle of a 25 year old white girl in America is not the same as a 25 year old girl of color in America.
Phoebe: A good example of the hashtag is, “when piercings, tattoos and pink hair are on a white girl it’s quirky but on a black girl they’re ghetto.”
Karley: Another was, “When Femen gets to decide Muslim women’s attire.”
Tea: I respect all people but I don’t respect religion. If your religion oppresses me or others, why should I? America’s constitution was based on separation of church and state, so why are we all tiptoeing around Catholics and Mormons when their policies hurt me? When a pharmacist can deny me birth control because of some book he reads?
Phoebe: Respecting religion is tied into respecting people.
Tea: But it affects everyone negatively. Most religions express the concept that women should cover up because men can’t help themselves otherwise. Isn’t that insulting to men as well?
Phoebe: If you look at rape culture and the idea of asking for it, it’s the same everywhere. Either you’re showing flesh or acting in an irresponsible way.
Tea: That’s why there’s nothing more punk than a slutty girl. It’s the most rebellious thing a girl can do. Even Courtney Love said Miley was punk rock in a weird, sex way.
Phoebe: Who wants to fuck Miley? She’s obviously pretty and has an amazing body but I feel the way she’s sexualized herself isn’t to inspire desire. Like, you never heard boys wanting to screw Madonna, which is partly why she’s so powerful.
Tea: Miley’s not serving the male gaze. What she’s doing is similar to what you do, what Molly Soda does by posting nudes, what Petra does with her photos. You can see Katy Perry shooting icing out of her tits but she does it in an infantile way. The way men want us to be sexual: unintentional yet intentionally for their pleasure. I’ve taken my clothes off in every club in Milan, not because it would attract attention from men, but the opposite. They were embarrassed for me and afraid of me. Men are confused by girls acting sexy for their own sake. Of course, when I did the same thing at strip clubs, they loved it.
Petra: I’ve had so many weird confrontations with art boys because I feel I am one of those hot, often naked, non-submissive sexual powers and I’m entering their little boys art club. They don’t know what to do with me!
Tea: They’re especially threatened by you because you’re taking photos of naked girls and actually saying something by doing so. So many men are “photographers” but all they do is bland Black & Whites of Tits & Ass. And they usually make it creepy.
Petra: When I was younger I would get in situations where guys would take these photos and it escalates until you feel like you have to keep going further even if you don’t want to.
Tea: All my shoots with hetero men ended in sexual harassment. Yes, everyone should see my butt but not everyone should touch it. Of course I’d rather have a girl photograph me!
Karley: You’re stealing the men’s jobs.
Tea: Speaking of which, the internet’s been accused of “killing subcultures,” since everything can be found online, meaning nothing is exclusive. Do you think the new subculture is Internet Girls? Like Petra, Molly Soda, Tavi, Slutever, etc.?
Phoebe: I remember trekking to Brighton for Le Tigre and seeing JD had a mustache, which was a revelation at the time. But when you think how many people were listening to them or cared that she had a mustache, it’s nothing compared to the amount of people who have seen Petra’s pubic hair come out of her knickers! Your impact is massive yet welcoming. The internet invites participation while subcultures are elitist. Tumblr is grassroots.
Tea: And most subcultures exclude women. In my experience, you must be a girlfriend or groupie to be accepted into a music scene. To be taken seriously you have to be “one of the guys.” You have to be sexless or strictly for sex. I read a great piece in Rookie about how music preferences and opinions of girls are considered irrelevant. Whatever teenage girls like is “silly.” But now we have girls speaking for themselves and creating their own audiences online and it’s clear they’re shaping our preferences, changing the way we communicate on social media and influencing how we dress, talk and behave. They are cool.
Phoebe: It’s so easy to connect on Tumblr with people who think the way you do. How is someone who doesn’t know how to approach academic text supposed to read the Second Sex? Now a teenage girl’s blog can teach you as much.
Karley: And you don’t even need text! Sometimes things are better said without words, like Petra’s work, which translates profound messages through images. I think new feminism is less about talking about what to change and more about just doing it. Like, I know Beyoncé sampled that feminist speech and that’s great but it’s not as powerful as Rihanna’s attitude. Just be a smart, brave, badass bitch.
Petra: We don’t have to wait to be accepted anymore. In university everyone was like, go to school, wait to graduate and then wait to get invited into your field. I didn’t wait or ask. My whole career exists because I connected with other girls on the internet. Tavi started Rookie on her own! That’s how I did my collective art show. Like, “I have no platform for this so I’m going to make it myself.”
Radio Hoes
Petra Collins and I recently went on Know-Wave radio for a second time, to answer more of your #important sex and relationship questions. We also had a deep chat about Miley Cyrus with our call-in guest, Tavi from Style Rookie. Girl-talk heaven over here! You can listen to our hour-long radio show HERE :)
Us at Know Wave :)
I went in-conversation with Petra Collins for the Girls Rule issue of Dazed. You can now read the full article below.
If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’re probably familiar with the artist Petra Collins. I’ve also written about her on this blog many times, and she and I have since made a couple of short films together, both of which (quite serendipitously) are about murderous girl gangs. We also both made T-shirts with vaginas on them, except hers was bleeding.
For those of you who don’t know: Petra made her name creating beautifully nostalgic images of youth in her hometown of Toronto, Canada. Still just 21, Petra’s career started in her mid teens. She’s the founder and curator of The Ardorous, an online platform for girls to show their artwork, and she’s also a staff photographer at Rookie, Tavi Gevinson’s awesome mag for teenage girls. This year Petra made the move to NYC, and has since curated an all-female art show titled Gynolandscape, become a muse to Ryan McGinley, and has started making music videos for artists like Sky Ferreira and Blood Orange. Through her cinematic lens, Petra has become an expert at using the female body as a tool to both seduce and provoke, and never fails to find the humor in both.
Karley Sciortino: We’ve worked together a bunch of times, but I’m only just realising that I’ve never asked you when or why you started taking photographs..
Petra Collins: Well, I hate saying this because it sounds sort of pretentious, but since I was very little I’ve always made art, in some form or another. It wasn’t a career choice; I was just doing it because I needed to, because it made me feel whole. Then, when I was 15 I took this photo of my younger sister’s three girlfriends sitting on my bed, and one of them was smoking, and when I got the image back it really surprised me – it was really interesting in a way that I didn’t expect, with a strange sadness and beauty to it. After that I decided to keep documenting those girls, and so for the past five years I’ve been taking photos of my younger sister and her friends. That was unconsciously my first photo project, and what started everything. It’s really crazy because now all the girls have graduated and are going to university.
Karley Sciortino: I’ve seen some of those photos. Some that stand out in my mind are of them at prom.
Petra Collins: Yeah, I shot them at prom, at parties that they went to, in their high school, them taking selfies…
Karley Sciortino: The other day I tweeted that a better name for our generation than “Millennials” would be “Generation Selfie.”
Petra Collins: Seriously. I think the selfie is really interesting because there’s so many levels to it. In a way, it’s an image that doesn’t hold that much truth, but rather is a representation of how someone wants people to perceive them. It’s supposedly a personal image, but it’s always taken with a second party in mind. It’s part of how we all curate our lives online, through Facebook or whatever.
Karley Sciortino: Yeah, so in a way the selfie is the purest representation of how we want the world to perceive us. I recently wrote an article about how social media has turned everyone into their own brand, and suggested that the people who don’t un-tag unflattering photos of themselves are actually just bad at doing their own PR.
Petra Collins: Lol.
Karley Sciortino: I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but when I first saw your work and then found out you were so young I thought, “She must have famous parents.” I didn’t think someone could be so cool while still so young without some assistance. But then when I met you I realized you’d actually just taught yourself to be cool on the internet.
Petra Collins: Ha, it’s true. The school of Tumblr!
Karley Sciortino: Yeah, it’s crazy how much of a game-changer that is – to grow up with a catalogue of everything that was ever cool or influential or relevant since the dawn of time. I just missed that, because I didn’t have internet at home until I was 13, and even then we just had like AOL chat and other similar non-cool-making resources, and then people like you and Tavi come along, and are intimidatingly cool at age 15, and that makes me hate you, honestly.
Petra Collins: Uh… thank you? So, when you started Slutever, did you set out to create a feminist blog?
Karley Sciortino: Honestly, that wasn’t my intention. I was just writing about what interested me, and I ended up writing a lot about sex and sexuality, I suppose just because I’ve always been a very sexual person, but it wasn’t until my blog started getting popular, and other people and press began referring to me as a feminist blogger that I sat back and thought, “Wait, is that what I am?” Don’t tell anyone, but I actually didn’t know that much about feminism at the time!
Petra Collins: No, same with me! I feel like we went down the same path, because I just started taking photos to work through my own person frustrations, but I didn’t really know what I was doing, and it was through being defined as a feminist that I discovered feminism. But that was only in my last year of high school, which isn’t that long ago.
Karley Sciortino: What frustrations were you working out?
Petra Collins: Well, in the beginning my images were very sexual, and at that time I was dealing with my emerging sexuality. I remember thinking that my worth as a person was based on my looks, and basically being a sex toy. That sounds bad but it’s really what I thought, and it felt very confusing, and I guess I was trying to combat feelings of the male gaze through my images. I wanted to create images that represented my own sexuality, not a sexuality that was dictated by someone else–like, “How do I make this mine?” But it’s a long, hard process to figure that out, and I’m still figuring it out.
Karley Sciortino: I recently interviewed Marsha Rowe for Dazed – she was the founder and editor of the iconic second-wave feminist magazine, Spare Rib. She told me, “What strikes me about modern feminism is that it focuses quite narrowly on the body. So much anxiety gets centered on the woman’s body, and it feels somehow detached from what other things are going on in the wider world.” We went on to talk about the obvious connection of girls’ obsessions with their bodies, and the unrealistic, airbrushed images of perfection we are bombarded with in advertising, in magazines, on TV, etc.
Petra Collins Yeah, it’s so fucked up. It’s almost hard to realise that those images aren’t real because we see them so much.
Karley Sciortino: Right, so we hold ourselves up to these unrealistic standards. It’s strange because as a society, we look at these super retouched images in the media and we’re angry, because we know it creates unhealthy aspirations for women, and just makes us feel bad about ourselves. But simultaneously, whenever we see an unretouched paparazzi shot of a celebrity on the beach, we relish in the opportunity to criticize them for having cellulite or whatever. Rather than appreciating it as a realistic depiction of a female body, we print the photo in a tabloid magazine and draw a big red circle around any imperfection, underneath a headline like, “Scarlett Johansson’s cellulite beach nightmare!” or whatever. So as a society we are very hypocritical about what we want. We want to see images that are at once aspirational and relatable, and yet we condemn them for being both.
Petra Collins: Honestly, I don’t think there’s an hour of the day where I don’t think about my body, which is really messed up. I actually find it weird when I meet a girl without body issues. I just think, “Where did you come from?!” And it makes me so sad to see my sister and her friends, who are all so amazing and beautiful, just hating themselves.
Petra’s censored Instagram shot
Karley Sciortino: As someone who’s curvier, I sometimes feel insecure about my weight. But then at the same time, because I understand that I’m in a position of even a small amount of influence to young girls, I feel it’s important to project a body-positive image in my writing and in my videos, because obviously I think girls of all sizes can look amazing, but I still can’t escape the harsh self-critique. And then I get anxiety that I’m projecting this confident imagine that isn’t entirely sincere, ya know? But anyway, keeping on the subject of body, your Instagram got deleted recently after you posted an image of yourself in a bikini with a visibly unshaved bikini line. Given that there’s millions of photos on Instagram of girls in bikinis, it was obvious that your photo was censored because of the hair. Quite awesomely, everyone from Vogue to the Huffington Post wrote stories about how Insta censored your pubes.
Petra Collins: Right, the issue was that the image of my body didn’t meet society’s standard of “femininity.” It’s an example of the pressure to succumb to society’s image of beauty literally turning into censorship. I actually did this giant research project about female body hair in my first year at university. I was beginning wonder why I felt the need to remove my hair, ritualistically, almost every day, without ever considering why. So as a little social experiment for myself I decided to stop shaving, just to see how uncomfortable I would be with exposing myself in that way. It was partially about training myself not be affected by what other people think. And now, three years later, I still have the hair. And I still get so many stares. It’s so funny how shocking armpit hair on a girl is to people–they spot it and they just like can’t look away! But I love it now, it’s such a cool accessory. I love the combination of armpit hair and a slutty dress.
Karley Sciortino: That’s hot. Maybe I should stop shaving, both to look more edgy and to just avoid getting ingrown hairs. Literally, sometimes I feel like my life is just one giant ingrown hair. So, who are some female artists that you love?
Petra Collins: I love Lauren Greenfield‘s work. She did that photo series Girl Culture, about girls lives and private rituals, and she made that documentary Thin, about a rehab center that treats women with eating disorders. What about you?
Karley Sciortino: I love Camille Paglia – she’s a very controversial feminist who writes largely about art, sex and pop culture. She’s very pro-sex, pro-porn, and she can be pretty harsh, but she usually just says what everyone else is thinking. And of course, I love Joan Didion, who somehow is able to perfectly articulate everything I’ve ever thought and felt and wondered about, and even some things I didn’t even realize I thought or felt until I read her words. So… should we talk about the fact that we both made shirts with vaginas on them? Mine was a photo of my hairy vaj, and yours was a line drawing of masturbating, menstruating woman with pubes, sold at American Apparel, and it sparked some backlash.
Petra Collins: I know. I find it funny that with all the sexually violent, disgustingly derogatory images we see everyday in the media, that a woman’s period is still something people find so shocking. Menstruation is a natural part of growing up and becoming a sexual person, and yet it’s so hidden, so I really wanted to put it on a shirt and bring the power back to vaginas. That’s what I love about your shirt too – it really demands attention, and calls attention to the fact that the vagina is its own sexual organ. It’s not, ya know…just for dicks.
