Those who leaf through a new Thames & Hudson release will meet a variety of women.
Some lounge on couches, while another wears a straw hat accented with feathers. Some are perched on beds and still others ride horses or are pictured around a swimming pool. And at least one holds a raised ax.
It might take a moment to realize that all these women are, in fact, the same woman.
“Anja Niemi: In Character” (204 pages, 176 illustrations, $35) has been released by Thames & Hudson, a career-to-date monograph of the work of the noted Norwegian photographer whose work has often been compared to that of Cindy Sherman.
As described in the press materials, “With her purposeful and elaborate stagings, Niemi is photographer, director and female lead, inserting herself into the lives of her fictional characters. Extending the genre of self-portraiture, her images offer a multilayered, cinematic exploration of identity, gender roles and, crucially, our relationship with ourselves.”
The book, which includes work from Niemi’s series “Do Not Disturb,” “Starlets,” “Darlene & Me,” “Short Stories,” “The Woman Who Never Existed” and “She Could Have Been a Cowboy,” includes a transcript of Niemi in conversation with Max Houghton, course leader MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.
There, Niemi shares, “I have been putting myself into my work for almost 20 years, but I’m still not sure if the images I create are strictly self-portraits; it certainly isn’t how I think about them.”
Intrigued? Read – and see more – with this in-depth offering.
For more, visit thamesandhudsonusa.com.
– Mary Shustack
