Rating: 
Summary: Incisive and indicting
Review: A modern classic that should be required fare for anyone seeking insight into contemporary American girlhood. Guaranteed discussion starter.
Rating:
Summary: Flash Art Magazine Review, February 2004
Review: American photographer Lauren Greenfield's recent exhibition is entitled "Girl Culture". The artist's stunning documentary photographs are prompting comparisons to other female photographers such as Tina Barney and Nan Goldin.
Like Barney, also a documentarist of the social realms of contemporary America, Greenfield painstakingly monitors subtle variations of self-representation, made congruent with commonly accepted ideals at the earliest possible stage in a person's development. The rites Greenfield are watching are those of the common girl. In this way, "Girl Culture" presents the opposite of the body-hiding conventions of Barney's East Coast WASPs. Greenfield focuses on the procedures of preparing and presenting the body in a body-fixated mass culture.
"Girl Just Want to Have Fun" springs to mind as a disturbing euphemism for living the life of a little girl, an adolescent, or a grown woman in the United States today. Oscillating between overeating, starving, and self-mutilation, these girls become conditioned at an early age (even as young as four) by dressing up (and looking frighteningly grown-up) in a brutally competitive environment filled with drastic misconceptions of beauty.
The radical affirmation of the standardized ideal sometimes results in travesty, such as when we look through the photographer's eyes at both Las Vegas showgirls and minors wearing too much makeup. Greenfield knows her craft. Her eye is never hurtful or brutally revealing, but instead allows her subjects to present themselves the way they like, the way they live - knowing that the production of the self in front of the camera can be more revealing than any pose the photographer suggests.
Beauty, for most of these girls and women, is used as a weapon. It seems to grant self-esteem and acceptance. The outer appearance supports and covers the self simultaneously until the individual is no longer indistinguishable from the masses, until it seems to blend in smoothly. The American body is a body for the masses that results in mass display of the manipulated, operated, augmented body on such ritual occasions as pageants and spring breaks. Greenfield shows the way that these rituals conceal a rigid subtext of pain, suppression, and denial.
Remarkable is the sheer absence of men in all of these scenes. With the exception of a spring ritual, in which a group of men hold up a woman like a broken Barbie doll, they are almost invisible. They occupy the women's fantasies, their longings, their projections. Thus, they are included in every picture that Greenfield takes, with a girl culture unfolding in front of the backdrop of dominant male culture. In this respect, Greenfield's seemingly objective photography contains a tangiable, important critique. (Written by Magdalena Kroner)
Rating:
Summary: Flash Art Magazine Review, February 2004
Review: American photographer Lauren Greenfield's recent exhibition is entitled "Girl Culture". The artist's stunning documentary photographs are prompting comparisons to other female photographers such as Tina Barney and Nan Goldin.
Like Barney, also a documentarist of the social realms of contemporary America, Greenfield painstakingly monitors subtle variations of self-representation, made congruent with commonly accepted ideals at the earliest possible stage in a person's development. The rites Greenfield are watching are those of the common girl. In this way, "Girl Culture" presents the opposite of the body-hiding conventions of Barney's East Coast WASPs. Greenfield focuses on the procedures of preparing and presenting the body in a body-fixated mass culture.
"Girl Just Want to Have Fun" springs to mind as a disturbing euphemism for living the life of a little girl, an adolescent, or a grown woman in the United States today. Oscillating between overeating, starving, and self-mutilation, these girls become conditioned at an early age (even as young as four) by dressing up (and looking frighteningly grown-up) in a brutally competitive environment filled with drastic misconceptions of beauty.
The radical affirmation of the standardized ideal sometimes results in travesty, such as when we look through the photographer's eyes at both Las Vegas showgirls and minors wearing too much makeup. Greenfield knows her craft. Her eye is never hurtful or brutally revealing, but instead allows her subjects to present themselves the way they like, the way they live - knowing that the production of the self in front of the camera can be more revealing than any pose the photographer suggests.
Beauty, for most of these girls and women, is used as a weapon. It seems to grant self-esteem and acceptance. The outer appearance supports and covers the self simultaneously until the individual is no longer indistinguishable from the masses, until it seems to blend in smoothly. The American body is a body for the masses that results in mass display of the manipulated, operated, augmented body on such ritual occasions as pageants and spring breaks. Greenfield shows the way that these rituals conceal a rigid subtext of pain, suppression, and denial.
Remarkable is the sheer absence of men in all of these scenes. With the exception of a spring ritual, in which a group of men hold up a woman like a broken Barbie doll, they are almost invisible. They occupy the women's fantasies, their longings, their projections. Thus, they are included in every picture that Greenfield takes, with a girl culture unfolding in front of the backdrop of dominant male culture. In this respect, Greenfield's seemingly objective photography contains a tangiable, important critique. (Written by Magdalena Kroner)
Rating: 
Summary: The Good and the Bad
Review: I am one of the girls in this book. I was 16 when Lauren photographed me. There is only one photograph of me and there is no story to go along with it. Why? Because I was a teen with a buzz cut who worked for a youth organization as a peer counselor. This does not fit the theme of her book, only the idea that I was controlled by our consumer culture worked to serve her concept so the rest of me was omitted. But hey, I like clothes so I must be a mindless drone of the beast that is consumer culture. I own the book now and I think what she is doing is admirable. Unfortunately I think she only shows one side and I am curious about the rest of the girls who were portrayed so negatively. This book makes a point that needs to be heard. It warns us of the dangers of our own materialism and the portrayal of women in the media. But I am sad that Lauren has not shown the other side, but simply blots it out to make sure she proves her point.
Rating:
Summary: What It's Like for a Girl
Review: I first saw this exhibit at the CCP at the University of Arizona, when I was 18 years old. Since then, I have not been able to erase Greenfield's images from my mind. Not only are her photographs beautiful and powerful, but the testimonials that go with each photo are heartbreaking. After I saw the exhibit, I had to have the book... but I didn't end up buying it until years later. I was happy to find that the book has expanded content--more pictures, longer testimonials, an introduction by JJ Brumburg (excellent!) and an essay written by Lauren Greenfield herself. I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the psychology and sexuality of America's female population.
Rating:
Summary: Florence show is beautiful.
Review: I just got back from Florence, Italy where my fiance and I came across this amazing exhibition called "Girl Culture" at the Forte Belvedere. Along with Gary Winogrand, Nan Goldin and Robert Frank, Lauren Greenfield certainly holds her own both as an artist and as a social commentator. I bought the book and have to say that I was floored by the interviews and additional images not included in the traveling exhibition.Lauren Greenfield is doing some ground-breaking work here, adding a visual layer to an already burgeoning discourse on modern femininity, the influence of the media and the increasingly deteriorating state of body-image in America. The cross-section of characters, ages, races, urban/suburban, school-age, college-age serves to hammer home the ubiquity of this "girl culture" experience. The interviews are heart-breaking, the images stark reminders of the dillusion of modern, female self-improvement. It is an inspriational body of work, an important look at our society at this time and place, but most importantly, it is perhaps the most powerful depiction of the 20th Century American female experience that I have ever seen. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Florence show is beautiful.
Review: I just got back from Florence, Italy where my fiance and I came across this amazing exhibition called "Girl Culture" at the Forte Belvedere. Along with Gary Winogrand, Nan Goldin and Robert Frank, Lauren Greenfield certainly holds her own both as an artist and as a social commentator. I bought the book and have to say that I was floored by the interviews and additional images not included in the traveling exhibition. Lauren Greenfield is doing some ground-breaking work here, adding a visual layer to an already burgeoning discourse on modern femininity, the influence of the media and the increasingly deteriorating state of body-image in America. The cross-section of characters, ages, races, urban/suburban, school-age, college-age serves to hammer home the ubiquity of this "girl culture" experience. The interviews are heart-breaking, the images stark reminders of the dillusion of modern, female self-improvement. It is an inspriational body of work, an important look at our society at this time and place, but most importantly, it is perhaps the most powerful depiction of the 20th Century American female experience that I have ever seen. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: A photographic study with powerful impact........
Review: I was walking through a local bookstore when the cover of this book caught my eye, and I was impacted immediately. The cover photo alone evoked a huge number of emotions within me, and I just had to buy the book, though I have never purchased a book of photographs before. I took down the title and author, and ordered this book from Amazon. I am not surprised that this book evoked such strong emotions from the reviewers I've read on here so far. This is an astonishingly powerful book, and I've never seen anything like it. The incredibly evocative photographs are often coupled with a monologue by girls/young women. Both the photos and the monologues are exceptional looks deep into the psyches of girls and young women. There are average girls, popular girls, Latina girls, African American girls, girls at weight loss camp, girls at an eating disorder clinic, nude girls lap dancing....every kind of young woman imaginable. The photos hit me right in the gut....and I am shocked that I've never before heard of this author. Sometimes, the photos were disturbing, but only because they probably hit "too close to home." Sometimes, the photos were lovely and peaceful. Sometimes, the photos were shocking and beautiful at the same time. I don't like to "tell the whole story" in my reviews; I think that completely spoils the surprise element for someone reading a book such as this for the first time. So...let me just say that this book of photos is well worth the money; I'd recommend it to any woman who is well beyond her "young woman" years.
Rating:
Summary: ARTWEEK REVIEW - FEBRUARY 2003
Review: Lauren Greenfield's photographs from her most recent project, Girl Culture,
represents an important return to traditional photography and a break with
the popular, staged work of the past decade. Using a 35mm camera and
working intuitively and spontaneously, Greenfield returns to the basics -
picturing that which is important and reorganizing the chaos of the real
world into compelling and complex images that speak to our experiences as
emotional beings. This may sound simple, but over the past ten years,
photographers have moved far from the traditional approach and into the
imaginative fictions of Hollywood films, utilizing elaborate productions
crews and massive digital prints. Greenfield, in a powerful and compelling
exhibition and book, brings photography back down to earth, and in doing so,
signals a shift in contemporary picture making. Greenfield has spent more than five years photographing young women and
girls, plumbing the zeitgeist for clues about body image, self-esteem,
consumerism and sexuality. As you can imagine, the results are not pretty.
They are skewed toward the complicated psychological arena where
self-awareness is mixed with victimization. The exhibition and book are
quite different experiences due to the fact that the publication included
interviews with the subjects. For a full appreciation of how vital this
work is to photography and to women¹s studies, it is important to see them
both. I found a pervasive sadness to the interviews, wherein women spoke of
the pressures to be thin, stylish and sexual and then expressed admiration
for these ideals, like an alcoholic who continues drinking, encouraging
others to join in. The exhibition at Stephen Cohen Gallery is immediately remarkable due to the
intimate scale of the photographs. The prints range from 11 by 14 inches to
16 by 20 inches with only a few being larger. This changes the experience
of the work by drawing the viewers in close to read and interpret the
images. Besides the modest print size, when we get close to the
photographs, we can see the tiny specks of grain and notice that some of
them are a bit out of focus. This may seem sound like a criticism, but
these imperfections are a refreshing departure from the majority of
contemporary photography, suggesting the haphazard complexity of real life
and the medium¹s dependence on the artist¹s unique vision. Greenfield¹s photographs are well known from major magazines and often
display a biting criticism and acerbic wit. These characteristics are used
mercilessly in some of the images. Lillian, then 18, shops at Kirna Zabete,
New York shows the pretty blonde sitting in an upscale boutique, holding a
red shoe. Her mouth hangs open in mid-sentence and its red-lined, oval
shape is echoed in the red, open-toed, ankle-strapped slingback she is
holding. Lillian reeks of having too much money and too little taste, and
the photograph is an indictment of her shallowness and vanity. In the
interview, Lillian says she hates being a blonde but claims to be so only
because she¹s an actress. Her awareness of the burden of beauty is
outweighed by her greedy consumerism. Another highly critical image shows
pornographic film star Taylor Wayne, who, dripping in jewelry, strikes a
clichéd pose, her massive breasts practically bursting from her dress. She
looks like a parody of herself, more of a mannequin than a real woman. Greenfield¹s tone is more forgiving when she examines subjects who have less
control over their lives. The photographs of kids and teenagers, some at
weight-loss camp, exude a compassion that is balanced with the artist¹s
critical eye. Paula, 11, at weight-loss camp, Catskill, New York is
heartbreaking but empowering. Apprehensive of the camera, the pudgy girl
with crimson cheeks turns her body away, clasping her hands in front of her
chest defensively. Greenfield photographs her in the shade without a flash,
and the soft, cool-cyan light bespeaks the girl¹s vulnerability. Using
wide-angle lens and slightly tilting the camera, she keeps our attention on
the girl¹s face and accents her expression and wide body. The image is
gentle but also has the effect of suggesting her inner power and creates an
optimism not seen in the more critical pictures. So too with the image of
Joyce, Elysia and Alison at their friend¹s sixteenth birthday party.
Instead of primping or showing off, the three girls embrace and comfort each
other. The picture is so intimate that it reveals an emotional support
system so vital to many of the younger women pictured here. The power and importance of Greenfield¹s work arises from its combination of
poignant subject matter, powerful compositions and framing, and the profound
connection between the subject and tradition the artist creates through her
masterful technique. The only weakness in the work is the dense contrast
between shadows and lights in many of the prints which takes away from their
emotional strengths. Greenfield is often referred to as a photojournalist,
which understates her importance in the art world. She is certainly not
driven to make pictures just because she is on assignment, but more likely
out of the desire to express her personal vision through relevant subjects.
Like Nan Goldin who, in 1987, showed that there was more to photography than
postmodern intellectualism, Greenfield takes us away from the monotonous,
digitized unreality of so much contemporary fine art photography. In so
doing, she reestablishes the primacy of the individual artist¹s vision in
connecting passion and subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: Every picture tells a story...
Review: Of course, it is a cliche that every picture tells a story and a picture is worth a thousand word, but "Girl Culture" can't be described any other way. The pictures so well illustrate the struggles and concerns of today's teenage girl. The dramatic illustrations and accompanying stories prove just how hard it is to grow up female and maintain a sense of self and high self-esteem. Some of the pictures and stories will break your heart, others will inspire anger and disgust, but over all the emotions evoked by this book are powerful and motivating. This book is a must for understanding the lives of teenage girls.
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