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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman, Untitled, c. 1977–78.

Mar 13 – Apr 27, 2024
555 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011

Francesca Woodman lures us in once again. Her haunting song—by turns enchanting, beguiling, slippery, and dangerous—arises in New York City, at Gagosian. Woodman was born into a family of artists in Boulder, Colorado. At 13, her father gave her one of his cameras to take to boarding school, where she began taking photographs in earnest and quickly mastered the medium, shooting and, crucially, developing her work. From 1975 to 1978, Woodman attended the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence; most of the prints in Gagosian’s exhibition were produced in response to school assignments there. Her early death, at 22, was devastating to family and friends, and a loss for art, but her confrontational push at the boundaries—that incredible vitality—has placed her in the canon, where she so clearly belongs. —Sarah Hyde

Photo: © Woodman Family Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/courtesy of Gagosian and the Woodman Family Foundation