maaarc
05-10-2014, 03:36 AM
wish I could have hung out with this guy while he was roaming the streets of Paris. Bright lights big city and beautiful girls.
Christer Strömholm: Les Amies de Place Blanche
MAY 18–SEPTEMBER 2, 2012
Christer Strömholm (1918–2002) was one of the great photographers of the 20th century, but he is little known outside of his native Sweden. His most powerful and acclaimed body of work: Les Amies de Place Blanche, a documentation of transsexual "ladies of the night" in Paris in the 1960s. Arriving in Paris in the late 1950s, Strömholm settled in Place Blanche in the heart of the city's red-light district. There, he befriended and photographed young transsexuals struggling to live as women and to raise money for sex-change operations. Strömholm's surprisingly intimate portraits and lush Brassaï-like night scenes form a magnificent, dark, and at times quite moving photo album, a vibrant tribute to these girls, the "girlfriends of Place Blanche." The photographs were first published in Sweden in 1983, and the book quickly sold out, becoming a cult classic; it is being reissued in Strömholm's photo-essay raises profound issues about sexuality and gender; as he wrote in 1983, "It was then—and still is—about obtaining the freedom to choose one's own life and identity."
Christer Strömholm: Les Amies de Place Blanche
MAY 18–SEPTEMBER 2, 2012
Christer Strömholm (1918–2002) was one of the great photographers of the 20th century, but he is little known outside of his native Sweden. His most powerful and acclaimed body of work: Les Amies de Place Blanche, a documentation of transsexual "ladies of the night" in Paris in the 1960s. Arriving in Paris in the late 1950s, Strömholm settled in Place Blanche in the heart of the city's red-light district. There, he befriended and photographed young transsexuals struggling to live as women and to raise money for sex-change operations. Strömholm's surprisingly intimate portraits and lush Brassaï-like night scenes form a magnificent, dark, and at times quite moving photo album, a vibrant tribute to these girls, the "girlfriends of Place Blanche." The photographs were first published in Sweden in 1983, and the book quickly sold out, becoming a cult classic; it is being reissued in Strömholm's photo-essay raises profound issues about sexuality and gender; as he wrote in 1983, "It was then—and still is—about obtaining the freedom to choose one's own life and identity."