\u201cIt is difficult to say where \/ precisely, or to say \/ how large or small I am,\u201d writes Margaret Atwood in her 1998 poem \u201cThis is a Photograph of Me,\u201d in which the narrator gives, from beyond the grave, directions to scrutinize more closely an image in which her presence is obscured: \u201cbut if you look long enough, \/ eventually \/ you will be able to see me.\u201d What might happen, what might you see, she seems to ask\u200a\u2014\u200awhat reveals <\/em>itself when you refuse to ignore what is right in front of your face, staring back at you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay longer, look harder, question concealment, refuse silent and insidious violence, deny the imposition of shame, employ alternative representational devices to upend norms, to tear apart the conventions of that which is put forward as neutral and naturally occurring. These are some of the poignant demands, among a litany of fervently articulated others, put forward by works in Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s<\/em> at The Photographers\u2019 Gallery. Including more than two hundred works by forty-eight artists from twenty countries, the exhibition is co-curated by the gallery\u2019s Anna Danneman and Gabriele Schor of the Verbund Collection, from which its content is drawn. It is divided into four categories: the borders and restrictions of the domestic sphere, the sexualization and objectification of the female body, cultural notions of beauty, and gender stereotypes. Though perhaps predictable in foci, these concepts are employed loosely and explored variously by the works \u00adgrouped within them, most of which naturally share overlapping concerns\u200a\u2014\u200aa testament to the many possible iterations of the personal as political, and vice versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n