Panel from Let's Take Back Our Space: 'Female' and 'Male' Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures
Marianne Wex
German, 1937–2020
1977
A panel of gelatin silver photographs mounted on board in which Marianne Wex documented and arranged images of men standing in public to reveal recurring postures that reflect patriarchal body language.
Set low against a broad white field, narrow vertical frames show six full-length men whose slight differences in leg stance, hand placement, head tilt and dress read like a repeated vocabulary of male posture.
Part of Wex’s feminist project of the 1970s, this work turned documentary photography into visual research that made visible how social norms shape everyday bodily comportment and influenced later art that mixes aesthetic practice with social analysis.
Medium
Gelatin silver prints, paper and ink on board
Dimensions
50.1 × 48.6 cm
Classification
Department
Credit
Committee on Photography Fund, and The Modern Women's Fund
Accession
1116.2018.41
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions