Stripping Girls

In 1998, photographer Anton Corbijn & artist Marlene Dumas joined forces for an exhibit in 2000 called Strippinggirls, and this is what the photographer had to say about it:

I was determined NOT to make a journalistic, documentary kind of photography. Nor was I out to create glamorous images - there are already so many around. Instead I wanted to try out some new things that I have been playing with recently and I figured that some would go quite well with this project. First the idea that striptease could have some of the attraction for people that the old freak shows used to have. I ended up using computer manipulation - making tiny changes so that you really gave to look for them, close-up like in a peepshow. Then the 4-letter words; in England these usually gave sexual connotations, so I used 4-letter words for feelings that the strippers might gave rather than the viewers, albeit a little ambiguously. Next were the very normal portrait photos of 5 girls, shot outdoors in Amsterdam; displaying the information regarding their profession might make you look at them differently. No discussion was intended about comparisons between painting and photography - I personally was merely interested to see how someone else tackles the same subject, under the same circumstances, albeit with different tools. The main difference in working seems to be that I struggle more at the start of the project (the shoot) and Marlene more in the latter phase of it (the actual painting). That is a pretty mundane observation which would seem obvious from the start anyway. Shooting next to Marlene brought out some anxieties - when looking at her polaroid's I was sure her way of shooting was far superior to mine, which was an interesting aspect I discovered in myself - I am worried about comparisons in the same discipline but not at all in a different medium. This kind of unease never lasted long, it was my uncertainty as it concerned shooting a subject unknown to me, a contrast with my day work. I adore Marlene's work and would swap my photographs for her paintings any time, but not because I necessarily think they would be better or compare them that way with my work, it is just because I love painting, and I believe that deep down I am a frustrated painter. The only envy there is one which is based on the freedom in time, the delay of a decisive moment, and the independence from reality that Marlene has to create. But if anything I think that this project brought me (as a person) closer to my own work.

These are a few of Corbijn's photos from that project.

The peep-shows:




The four-letter words:




The portraits:




A catalogue of the museum show can be found on the photographer's website, where he writes:

It is not a documentary or a comparison between the two artforms but just two people tackling the same subject in different ways. The way we operated was to always go together to meet and photograph the girls and then work it out in our own ways afterwards. All the work was done in Amsterdam between late 1998 and spring 2000. I have used three different methods of approach with 5 works for each direction and Marlene has 15 paintings in total as well. I enjoyed the collaboration enormously.

Found via Sexuality In Art; more photos at the LipanjePuntin Contemporary Art Gallery.