Rethink glamour at a pair of Ryerson photo exhibitions

In a pair of clever new exhibitions, the Ryerson Image Centre documents how photography has shaped Western conceptions of glamour—and how photography can just as effectively tear those notions down. Burn With Desire: Photography and Glamour and Anti-Glamour: Portraits of Women, both opening on Jan. 21 at the RIC, depict polar approaches to the representation of women in photography. Through portraits of Marilyn Monroe, archival Vanity Fair covers and projects by Andy Warhol, Burn With Desire explores how the medium—with its pre-Photoshop attention to immaculate lighting and gauzy romanticism—equated glamour with aesthetic perfection and vulnerable seduction. Anti-Glamour, meanwhile, playfully upends everything its counterpart professes, featuring contemporary pictures that affront viewers with the stark, sometimes ugly reality of gun-wielding femme fatales and brazen bare-breasted figures. The result is a jarring juxtaposition that gives new meaning to iconic images we thought we’d figured out long ago.

Jan. 21–Apr. 5. Ryerson Image Centre, 33 Gould St., 416-979-5164, ryerson.ca.

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Marilyn Monroe at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony

(Image: Gene Daniels, <em>Untitled</em>, March 1962, gelatin silver print. The Black Star Collection, Ryerson Image Centre)

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(Image: Rebecca Belmore, <em>Fringe</em>, 2008, digital chromogenic print mounted to Plexiglas. Courtesy of the artist, Steven Wilson and Michael Simmonds)

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Marlon Brando

(Image: Charles Bonnay, <em>Untitled</em>, May 1960, gelatin silver print. The Black Star Collection, Ryerson Image Centre)

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Mia Wasikowska

(Image: Alex Prager, <em>Touch of Evil</em>, 2011, digital video still. Originally produced by The New York Times Magazine. Courtesy of the artists and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong)

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Mamie Van Doren.

(Image: <em>Untitled</em>, date and location unknown, gelatin silver print. Photographer unknown, The Black Star Collection, Ryerson Image Centre)

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(Image: Jo Spence [collaboration with Rosy Martin], <em>Untitled</em>, from the series Libido Uprising, 1989, chromogenic colour print. Jo Spence Memorial Archive, gift of Terry Dennett, Ryerson Image Centre)

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(Image: Marie Le Mounier, <em>Angel</em>, mural installation 9.40 x 2.30 m [detail]. Ryerson Image Centre, 2015)

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(Image: Jo Spence [collaboration with Rosy Martin], <em>Photo Therapy: The Bride</em>, 1984-86, chromogenic colour print. Jo Spence Memorial Archive, gift of Terry Dennett, Ryerson Image Centre)

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Marilyn Monroe.

(Image: Manfred Linus, <em>Untitled</em>, date and location unknown, gelatin silver print. The Black Star Collection, Ryerson Image Centre)

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Adepero Oduye

(Image: Alex Prager, <em>Touch of Evil</em>, 2011, digital video still. Originally produced by The New York Times Magazine. Courtesy of the artists and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong)

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