Eastman House presents gender performed in photographs with the exhibition Male & Female, opening Sept. 15

Images featured include 19th-century performers, ballet dancers, Edwin Booth, 1950s advertisements, Marilyn Monroe, Arnold Schwarzenegger

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — George Eastman House will present the many ways gender has been presented to the camera over the last century and a half with the exhibition Male & Female: Gender Performed in Photographs from the George Eastman House Collection, on view Sept. 15, 2007 through Jan. 27, 2008.

This exhibition of more than 40 portraits from the George Eastman House photography collection emphasizes the performance of gender as visual vocabulary. "Many of the ways we identify and define gender are based on visual clues," said Dr. Alison Nordtröm, Eastman House's curator of photographs and curator of Male & Female. "They may be such secondary sexual characteristics as facial hair or its lack, or they may be culturally determined elements such as costume, stance or activities."

Male & Female surveys photography from the 19th century to the present and shows not only instances of exaggerated and stereotyped male and female difference but also images of ambiguous and deceptive gender. The exhibition features work by recognized photographic artists — such as Mathew Brady, Edward Steichen, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Hine, Ben Fernandez, and Nickolas Muray — as well vernacular examples in the forms of cabinet cards from an extensive series depicting early vaudeville and music hall stars.

Among the noteworthy images featured are Muray's portrait of Marilyn Monroe, Edward Steichen's Greta Garbo, Candice Bergen's portrait of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Victor Keppler's advertising photography.

Male & Female is part of the three-exhibition series titled Lucha Libre y más, on view at Eastman House this fall. The other exhibitions in the series, which focuses on extreme gender representation, are Lucha Libre! Masked Mexican Wrestlers and The Tease. For more information about George Eastman House exhibitions, please visit eastmanhouse.org or call (585) 271-3361.

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