Dream Spaces, Blurred Face

Pina Lomb reflects on Francesca Woodman’s haunting artistry and the surreal, intimate images that defined her brief but impactful career, highlighted in a new Gagosian exhibition that reimagines her “Blueprint for a Temple.” In her final year before her tragic death in 1981, Francesca Woodman feverishly worked on “Blueprint for a Temple.” This ambitious collage, ... Dream Spaces, Blurred Face

Pina Lomb reflects on Francesca Woodman’s haunting artistry and the surreal, intimate images that defined her brief but impactful career, highlighted in a new Gagosian exhibition that reimagines her “Blueprint for a Temple.”

In her final year before her tragic death in 1981, Francesca Woodman feverishly worked on “Blueprint for a Temple.” This ambitious collage, over 14 feet tall, transformed her friends into sculptural caryatids, blending the grandeur of ancient Greece with New York’s tenement tile work.

Initially exhibited in 1980 at the Alternative Museum, this piece was later donated to the Met by her parents. In 2018, another version, “Blueprint for a Temple (II),” was discovered among her estate’s overlooked works. This second version, more experimental, is now the centerpiece of a new show at Gagosian, running through April 27, 2024, alongside over 50 of her lifetime prints.

While studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, Woodman was influenced by Surrealist photographers like Man Ray and Claude Cahun. She also drew inspiration from conceptual artists and fashion photographers such as Guy Bourdin and Deborah Turbeville. Despite her keen interest in fashion, Woodman’s work was often seen as too refined for the industry and too gothic for the art scene, leading to a sense of frustration and alienation.

A recent exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery delved into the tragically brief yet profoundly impactful career of Francesca Woodman, revealing an unseen masterpiece.

Born to George, an abstract painter, and Betty, a ceramicist, Francesca was immersed in art from an early age. Summers in the Tuscan countryside, surrounded by the works of Florentine masters, allowed her to explore museums and return with sketchbooks filled with elaborate court paintings. Her family’s dynamic, particularly the attention devoted to her older brother Charles due to his diabetes, left Francesca freer to wander and create. “If she didn’t come home for supper, who cared?” her father once reflected.

At thirteen, Francesca received her first camera from George, and her unique, haunting style began to emerge. One image features her nude, save for calf-high socks, beside a white lily—a motif reminiscent of Renaissance art. Another shows clothespins biting into her naked torso like insects. She experimented with long exposures, capturing a figure seemingly half in this world and half out through a gravestone aperture. By the time she enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design, she was a self-assured photographer.

Her promising career was cut short in 1981 when Woodman died by suicide at twenty-two. She has since become a mythic figure in the art world, often compared to Sylvia Plath. The show at Gagosian Gallery offered a fresh perspective on her work.

Featured were many of Woodman’s mature works, many completed as school assignments. These images, often marked with instructional notes, were taken in an abandoned house in Providence. One depicts Woodman dressed like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, poised as if opening a door to inky blackness. Another series shows her shielding her nude body with wallpaper, a nod to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Also on display, were works from Woodman’s year in Rome, a period she later described as her “halcyon days.” In a decaying spaghetti factory, she created the “Self-Deceit” series, manipulating a mirror to reflect nothing. These images, imbued with a longing for another time and place, capture her blending into her surroundings, her body painted or dirtied.