Lauren Greenfield

The 21st Century is an empire of images. We are preoccupied with appearances that are shaped and pored through the lambent vessel of the camera’s lens. Women’s bodies, Joan Jacobs Brumberg has observed, have become “public projects.” Femininity has become increasingly exhibitionist in nature--not that this is exactly a new trend.

Lauren Greenfield attempts with her photography “to deconstruct the illusions that make up our reality.” A new book and photo exhibit of Greenfield’s titled Girl Culture is a wide-ranging look at the ways in which women make their bodies a public project. In the afterword to her book, Greenfield writes that “Girl culture has been my journey as a photographer, as an observer of culture, as part of the media, as a media critic, as a woman, as a girl.”

Many of the pictures for Girl Culture were made by Greenfield while on assignment for the New York Times Magazine, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, and W. “I realize that, as a photographer exploring the media’s influence, I walk a fine line,” she writes. Her photographs provide a window on the private rituals and social lives of young girls, from dressed-up children and teenagers to cheerleaders, athletes, strippers, debutantes and actresses.

Fifty of the 100 color photos in the book are on display in the exhibit. The photographic images were originally shot as positive transparencies. For the exhibit, Lambda prints, ranging in size from 11 x 14 to 20 x 30 inches, were made on Cibachrome paper from laser scans. Greenfield works with the full photographic frame and never crops her images.

Technically, Greenfield’s photography serves up images that are rich with color saturation, sharply focused, well-lit and composed. Most of them are posed shots with the subjects looking directly at the camera. The rest are candid glimpses of their subjects examining their own faces or bodies. In every one of them, the obsession with the face and body and their public presentation is evident.

LAUREN GREENFIELD