Here is a book published in 1980, by an artist obsessed with sexual imagery, keen on playing with stereotypes, and less interested in pictures than in the context through which we receive them. And no, this artist is not Richard Prince, but the late Robert Heinecken.
He/She provides with a very good entry point into Heinecken’s work. The spiral-bound book (designed with a homemade quality) features Polaroid prints, illustrating male/female stereotypes, and hand written short dialogues between “He” and “She”. These two characters talk about somehow explicit matters, such as kisses or lovers’ smell. Heinecken’s work has sometimes been described as misogynist. “He/She”, for instance, dismisses the idea that genre differences could simply ignored, in opposition to some feminist ideas.
I can’t help comparing this book to Richard Prince’s Girlfriends series, in which images focus on “biker chicks”, as they appear in motorcycle magazines. Both artists’ works (in my view) are not demeaning to women, but on the contrary, criticize their reduction to sexual objects. “He/She” is typical of this ambiguousness.
He/She provides with a very good entry point into Heinecken’s work. The spiral-bound book (designed with a homemade quality) features Polaroid prints, illustrating male/female stereotypes, and hand written short dialogues between “He” and “She”. These two characters talk about somehow explicit matters, such as kisses or lovers’ smell. Heinecken’s work has sometimes been described as misogynist. “He/She”, for instance, dismisses the idea that genre differences could simply ignored, in opposition to some feminist ideas.
I can’t help comparing this book to Richard Prince’s Girlfriends series, in which images focus on “biker chicks”, as they appear in motorcycle magazines. Both artists’ works (in my view) are not demeaning to women, but on the contrary, criticize their reduction to sexual objects. “He/She” is typical of this ambiguousness.
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