Portfolios
Galleries
Bodies of work, 1961 – 2017
He-She
From the earliest days of my career in art and photography, I have photographed people who bravely break taboos and re-define their cultural and sexual representation. Many of my images embrace the fluidity of gender identity and explore the possibility that we each hold a myriad of alternative selves within us. In the twenty years that I have been photographing the French performance artist, Fred Koenig, we have collaborated on producing images that explore a gender-fluid queer identity. My He-She portfolio reveals the spectrum of Fred’s transformations and selves. These non-binary gender images blur the boundaries dividing humanity into male and female sexes based solely on anatomy, hormones or chromosomal attributes.
29 works — View portfolio
Maîtresse
Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 , is a major exhibition examining the scene-changing, interdisciplinary life of downtown New York’s seminal and fabled post-punk alternative space in New York’s East Village. Maîtresse was originally created for Club 57 as a feminist slideshow with 98 erotic images for the party night of Pictures You Can Dance To (April 30, 1980) and set to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground singing “Venus in Furs.” The images capture a fearless collaboration between Rosen’s female gaze and the sexual imagination of her subjects. In the safe, respectful, intimate setting of her studio playground, the women – straight, gay, alone and coupled — felt free to dress, undress and pose, wearing feather boas, studded leather or nothing at all. Rosen’s images range from romantically, soft and feminine to shockingly powerful and muscular to gender-fluid and androgynous. Transgressive at the time, they were among the first to show women exploring their bodies, reclaiming the power to define their own physical beauty and sexual truths.
48 works — View portfolio
The Ladies Room
The figures in my portfolio, The Ladies Room , depict a bold and defiant sexiness. Gay, straight, transgender, transsexual… they each define their own idea of female beauty
22 works — View portfolio
100 % Pure Heroine
The girls in 100% PURE HEROINE demand a new kind of female representation in history. With the birth of gay liberation in 1969, we fearlessly took to the New York streets and broke taboos both politically and culturally. I photographed my friends and our unique style of posing and style. Androgyny became an idealized definition of gender. Sexual role playing tied into sexual politics. By the 80’s ‘Lesbian Chic’ had emerged as a style, blurring the differences between masculinity and femininity.
9 works — View portfolio
Strong and Sexy
“She’s made of steel. No, she is merely made of woman — and that is enough” – – Colette, The Vagabond I have always photographed strong women. In the seventies I looked to my circle of friends for inspiration. We were women who dared to be different: feminist, independent, self-reliant, active women who felt there was nothing we could not do or be. In the eighties, I focused my camera on another group of powerful women who displayed the essence of the feminine spirit: those who were working out in gyms. They have taken the raw energy fueling their belief that they are capable of changing the world and have channeled it back to the foundation, to the physical body. I became fascinated by the aesthetic of the muscular female when I began photographing the women at my gym and at bodybuilding contests. Some of the athletes I chose for my book STRONG & SEXY are competitors, some are champions, some are wives and mothers, and some are discovering their first real sport in bodybuilding.
23 works — View portfolio
Changed Landscapes
“I thought, I wonder how long it was before the Dahomean* girl Amazons could take their changed landscapes for granted?” – – Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals *It is said that the Amazon warriors of Dahomey have their right breasts cut off to make themselves more effective archers. In 1998, Takami had undergone a double mastectomy. She told me that she had been scared when diagnosed with breast cancer, assuming that she would die. Following the chemotherapy, when her hair was falling out, she made a decision to shave her head. When she looked in the mirror, she realized that she was more beautiful than she had ever been. She saw herself reborn, and knew at that moment that she was going to live. As a photographer, I saw both Takami’s scars and her beauty. I dared to look deeper because she wasn’t afraid to show me. How optimistic and courageous to look inward, to face loss, and become stronger through the experience. The truth is that the landscape of our body is forever changing. Like a topographic map, the lines and shadings reflect our physical and psychological journey through life – through adolescence, childbirth, illness, menopause, and old age. Takami’s photographs depict a woman who bravely explores the physical and emotional contours of her new form. These portraits can be viewed as a narrative about her life and also as a defining moment of change. Bald, breast-less and scarred, she is as she appears to be — fearless and beautiful, essentially and eternally female. Breaking Through Tradition, Pierro Gallery, South Orange, NJ (2014) (2 images) Changed Landscapes, Elsa Mott Ives Gallery, New York, NY (1998)
12 works — View portfolio
Childhood Memories
‘Thoughtful Eyes, Fanciful Dreams’ records a biographical moment, measured not as an isolated fragment of time, but suggesting the narrative arc of childhood memories / capturing past, recording present and projecting into the future. What haunts me is finding the essence of the visible and invisible timeline. The young girl, cocoon-wrapped in a feathered cape, appears like a chrysalis emerging in the moment of becoming. Her wide-eye gaze draws the viewer into the enigma of childhood dreams. The presentation of the printed image on cotton voile adds to the fluidity of the work. It can appear as a tangible portrait of a young girl, or depending on where one is standing in relationship to the piece, the image can become intangible, and disappear into the back light. ‘Thoughtful Eyes, Fanciful Dreams’ reflects not just the fleetingness of memory, but the evanescence of childhood itself.
3 works — View portfolio
White Lace
This is a glimpse into the intimate world of women: candid pictures taken in those last few hours of preparation, as the bride is fussed over by a private circle of female friends and family, before she takes that big step into matrimony. For some brides, the moment before they walk down the aisle is like a fairy-tale they have waited for since childhood. A grandmother’s gnarled hands smooth a veil; a younger sister devotedly applies her older sister’s make-up; bridesmaids giggle and tease. For some brides it is an almost tortuous time of dashed hopes, exasperation, and loneliness. Amidst a tangle of tulle there’s a grimace of fear; a bride dons her dress alone; the clench of a corset; a swig of champagne to calm nerves. In these intense and intimate moments, the camera finds these women coy, determined, funny, sensual, clumsy, frantic, silly, trashy, contemplative and more. I bring my skills as a photojournalist to wedding photography and cover these events as a visual narrative, creating very singular day-in-the-life documentaries. I have photographed over 350 weddings and the women in this collection of photographs vary in ages, ethnicities and religion, and include gay and straight brides. The locations range from an English manor home to a trendy salon, a Las Vegas chapel to an urban studio apartment, from fashionable hotels to sparse function hall rooms and chic country estates to historic reconverted warehouses.
32 works — View portfolio
Portraits
Portraits of the artists, writers, performers and public figures Trix Rosen photographed across five decades — among them Eartha Kitt, Debbie Harry, Isabel Allende, Jamaica Kincaid and Ang Lee.
29 works — View portfolio
The Personal is Political
The Personal is Political depicts female activists who speak out about freedom and human rights. I took the picture, Syd and Jackie in 1961, during my summer at Cejwin Camps in Port Jervis, NY. It has been on exhibit in EARLY WORKS, a travelling exhibit and online website that contains photographs taken by many notable photographers when they were children; each paired with a personal narrative recalling the memory of the experience and how it affected them. The image of Syd and Jackie reminded me why gender identity became the subject of my fine art photography and human rights the focus of my photojournalism. I lived in Iowa City during 1969 and joined a women’s collective that was publishing an ‘underground’ newspaper, Ain’t I a Woman, (the name based on a speech given by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave, in 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron Ohio.) At that time, it was one of five counter-culture newspapers published by women across the US. The Ain’t I a Woman collective published some of the significant and radical papers about race, class and gender including The Women Identified Woman. The redefinition of women’s roles took on political meaning when it challenged the distribution of power in society. It was International Women’s Day in 1970 and on Ellis Island, a group of women with clandestinely rolled up banners boldly climbed the stairs inside the Statue of Liberty and hung both the women’s symbol and the words proclaiming Women of the World Unite from the windows on top of the statue. Another group of women marched below with signs declaring Equal Rights for Women NOW! as they demonstrated for equal rights in the workplace. Aung San Suu Kyi , one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, spent 15 out of 22 years locked under house arrest. During that time she received the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to nonviolent change in Burma. When I met her in 1996 she had temporarily been released and despite constant intimidation and threats was publically addressing the fears of the Burmese citizens who dared to come to her house. “I like to think that perhaps we are now at our darkest hours,” Daw Suu told me, “but it is always darkest before dawn. By intimidation the authorities have tried to keep people from taking any interest in politics but you cannot stay away from politics because politics will not stay away from you. It will follow you everywhere.” Aung San Suu Kyi was released in 2010, and in 2012 was elected to the National Assembly.
23 works — View portfolio
Urban Archeology & Modern Ruins
“in that deep sense of voicefulness… which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.” – – John Ruskin, The Lamp of Memory For my work as a historic preservation photographer I document landmark sites being bulldozed or restored. Some of these poetic images of decaying structures are included in my fine art portfolio, URBAN ARCHEOLOGY & MODERN RUINS, along with my photographs of endangered historic houses. I am drawn to the timeless nature of historic architecture because it is a repository of collective memories – a record of the builder s and the people who once inhabited the spaces. I look to the architectural details, to the deeply etched memories in the walls and structures as a window to the past.
42 works — View portfolio
Bet-Hayyim
In August 2008 I travelled to the Ukraine to visit Odessa, the birthplace of my father. My two-week visit became an exploration into the history of the once vast community of Eastern European Jews and the relics they had left behind. This odyssey started in Kiev at the ravine in Babi Yar, and took me to the tombs of Rabbi Nachman in Uman and the Ba’al Shem Tov in Medzhybizh, two historic Hasidic pilgrimage sites associated with the Kabbalah. I crisscrossed the heartland, over 2000 kilometers, to visit cities, towns, and shtetls, and to photograph the carved tombstones in cemeteries dating back to the 1400’s. The Bet Hayyim that survived the destruction of the pogroms and the murder of the local Jewish community during the Holocaust have been abandoned to the elements for more than half a century. Yet these “houses of the living” powerfully remind us of the centuries of life, art and ritual which thrived here. For me, a first-generation American, an artist, a photojournalist, and a historical preservation photographer, they have become a portal to rediscovering my own Jewish heritage.
37 works — View portfolio
Light Drawings
“With all your science, can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?” – – Henry David Thoreau My LIGHT DRAWINGS are photographed using a medium-format camera, with each of the multiple elements exposed onto a single frame of transparency film. I draw with light using a variety of sources, including lasers, hand-blown colored glass neon tubes, electronic flash and black light. Each light source is composited for its unique color, shape, pattern, wave form and line into an ephemeral space that exists only during its exposure and where it becomes part of a timeless, fluid and visionary reality.
31 works — View portfolio
Divine Dahlia And Other Flowers
Reflections on the Earth It was late afternoon on a summer day when I saw these flowers at a farmer’s market. The spectacular lushness and passionate vermillion color of the Dahlias represented a visual reminder that beauty in nature is a reflection of the divine. Yet red can be associated with the color of blood and burning fire, and it is also a symbol of guilt, pain and anger. I have worked in war zones, and after the 2004 Asian tsunami taught digital photography to children in Banda Aceh, Indonesia and Southern Thailand. I have seen massive natural destruction and the scarring results of war on populations. When I look at these stunning flowers bursting with life that were grown only to be cut down and grace our homes with their beauty, I am reminded to say thank you. I pray that people will appreciate, nurture and respect our earth’s bounty and all its inhabitants.
33 works — View portfolio
Divine Light
“DANCE TO THE MUSIC.” 2013. 24W x 36H inches. Transparent parchment on ¼” acrylic sheet. “DANCE TO THE MUSIC” is an Ushpizen to honor the female lineage that links the Ba’al Shem Tov to his great-grandson, Rebbe Nachman (1772-1810). The Ba’al Shem Tov was married to Hannah, and they had a daughter, Adel, who was a healer, herbalist, and a true tzaddeket. Adel’s daughter, Feiga, also considered a holy person, was called ha- Nevah (the prophetess) and was the mother of Rebbe Nachman.Rebbe Nachman encouraged his followers to clap, sing and dance during or after their prayers, bringing them to a closer relationship with God. The center image in “DANCE TO THE MUSIC,” is from an embroidery with a joyous, folk-style theme that was hand-stitched by my mother and which acknowledges my own female heritage. I combined the embroidery with images that were photographed from my studio window, with seasonal flowers, and with a female gravestone, (photographed in Chernevtsi, the Ukraine), as there are no stones to mark the women’s graves from this historic family. In this art-work I am welcoming Hannah, Adel and Feiga to our Sukkah and honoring their legacy with the hope that they become a stronger branch on a great dynastic tree. “L’SHANA TOVAH.” Jewish New Year Cards. 2015 “L’SHANA TOVAH.” Jewish New Year Cards. 2015 “L’SHANA TOVAH.” Jewish New Year Cards. 2015 “DISTANT COUSINS.” 2011 On the day of her Bat Mitzvah, thirteen-year-old Faith, adorned with an embroidered tallit, is standing in front of a stained glass window at her synagogue in New Jersey USA. On the day of her Bat Mitzvah, thirteen-year-old Faith, adorned with an embroidered tallit, is standing in front of a stained glass window at her synagogue in New Jersey USA. Rena, a twelve-year-old in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, lost her parents to the Asian tsunami. She is wearing a jilbab, symbolizing adherence to Allah’s commandments in the Qur’an, the Islamic holy text. DISTANT COUSINS.” 2011 “DISTANT COUSINS.” 2011 “VISAURAL” Exhibition, Pigment print on aluminum with hand-filed edges, 12H x 18W inches. I photographed the graffiti drawing on a cell wall of the Women’s Wing at the abandoned Essex County State Penitentiary, in North Caldwell, NJ. Both the text and the inmate’s haunting, hand-drawn portrait poignantly illustrate one of the fundamental questions we ask about life. I paired it with “Hallelujah,” written by Leonard Cohen and performed here by K.D. Lang, because the prayer-like music affirms a faith in life and love amidst doubts. Cohen has said the iconic song represents “absolute surrender in a situation you cannot fix or dominate.” Alone, within the steel bars of her cage-like cell, I can imagine the figure in the drawing listening to the repeated one-word chorus coming through the open ceiling above her. According to the song, even those of us for whom “it all went wrong” can experience transcendence. As Cohen writes: we “stand before the Lord of Song/ with nothing on [our] lips but a cold and broken Hallelujah.” “BROKEN GLASS.” 2017 Homes are often the place of terrible pain and violence. I was gentrified out of my downtown NYC loft, my home of 40 years. It was a beautiful space, a serene and inspiring sanctuary from the outside world. The owner couldn’t legally get me to leave. The owner tried many destructive ways to make me feel unsafe and traumatized. His workmen “accidentally” punched a hole in the wall of my bathroom, destroying my glass medicine cabinet. Soon after, a fire exploded into the bedroom where I was sleeping. I was fortunate to escape with only smoke inhalation. Images of the historic architectural view from my loft’s front window are composited into the digital image of my glass-strewn and shattered medicine cabinet. Cotton fibers and torn pieces of sandpaper are then collaged onto the archival digital print. “HOME” Exhibition, Hebrew Union College Museum – JIR Museum, NYC, Sept 2017-June 2018. 17H x 22W inches “TAMAR CLAIMS HER RIGHTS.” 2014 “JEWISH WOMEN OF THE BIBLE’’ Exhibition, Feb 3- June 30 30 2015, Hebrew Union College – JIR Museum, NYC. 21 ¾W x 25 ½H Inches. Unique collage. Judah does not want to give Tamar his third son in marriage after her first two husbands, and two of his sons, were killed by God for their wickedness. She decides to get justice for herself and secure her rights. Dressed as a prostitute, she waits for Judah. The lines drawn across her face represent her determination to be unrecognizable to her father-in-law. The light rays depict both her link to God and to the twins she will conceive, one of whom will be ancestor of King David. The fire is Judah’s initial command that she be burnt to death when he discovers he had slept with his daughter-in-law. The deeply scratched image is Tamar’s willingness to face adversity to secure her own future and place in posterity. “HAGAR ENCOUNTERS GOD BY THE SPRING.” 2014 Hagar was an Egyptian handmaid. The spelling of her name (hey gar) means “Adonai dwells” with her. Sarai gave her to Abram to bear a child, Ismael. But Sarai became jealous and made Hagar flee into the desert. Hagar encountered a Divine Messenger at a spring. God spoke directly to her. God forges a relationship with Hagar: “you are the one that sees me.” “JEWISH WOMEN OF THE BIBLE’’ Exhibition, Feb 3- June 30 30 2015, Hebrew Union College –JIR Museum, NYC. 17 3/4W x 20 3/8H Inches. Unique collage. “WRESTLING WITH LEVITICUS.” No. 1, 2012 Artist, Susan Kaplow, asked me to photograph her, wearing her hand-sewn shrouds with the words from Leviticus 18 screened on the garments. We discussed our collaboration, our feelings about homosexuality being called an abomination, and how the word abomination/tahara makes Susan feel dead. I documented her putting on the garments and followed her gestures as she expressed her pain, anger, confinement and claustrophobia within the shrouds. Susan’s performance informed my composition and narrative content. Each frame became a commentary on the text. For this installation and for my photographs to offer another commentary on the story I found an intersection between the performance and the gestures, where the bound figure as a sculptural form goes beyond the personal documentation into its own autonomy. “WRESTLING WITH LEVITICUS.” No.2, 2012 “THE SEXUALITY SPECTRUM,” Sept 6 2012 – June 30 2013, Hebrew Union College –JIR Museum, NYC. 34W x 24H inches. Mounted on black Plexiglas. “JUDITH’S SPIRITUAL JOY.” 2012 “SELF-PORTRAIT with MY FATHER’S TEFILLIN AND TALLIT.” 2012 “TWO GENERATIONS.” 2016 I photographed a mother and her daughter as they were wrapping their arms seven times while learning to lay tefillin. It is the mother’s hand that is the foundation for her daughter as they follow the commandment to bind oneself to a higher power. “PAINT BY NUMBERS” Exhibition, Sept 8 2016 – June 30 2017, Hebrew Union College –JIR Museum, NYC. 20H x 24W inches “ANNA SITTING ON THE MOON.” (Souvenir Postcard from Coney Island, Brooklyn NY c.1910). 2017, “DISPLACEMENT: WOMEN’S JOURNEY’S,” January 31- February 24, 2018, Ceres Gallery, NYC. 18H x 30W inches Anna Stein (my grandmother) was born in Vilna, which was part of the Russian empire in 1890. She emigrated by herself to America in 1910 when she was 20 years old. “PILLOW FOR MY GRANDFATHER.” In 1911, my grandfather, Michel Leib Raschkovsky, left his home in Odessa to travel to America. He was robbed and murdered in Constantinople before he could board the boat with his wife, Brucha, and two sons, Hersh (Harry) and Jossel (Jack, my father). The murderer was never found. They went on without him. I photographed the remnants of his antiquated passport in the detritus of the scattering leaves left from Sandy, the 2012 Hurricane that struck the East Coast of the U.S. with a deadly force. A portrait of young Brucha (now Bella) as she looked when she first arrived in America is collaged onto a page of Michel Leib’s Russian passport. A photo of his wife and two sons from 1946, thirty-five years after their arrival in America, is memorialized onto his weathered passport cover. “KINDRED: CELEBRATING OUR ANCESTORS,” Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center. August, 2017
15 works — View portfolio
Illuminations
Presenting portraits celebrating gender-fluidity, photographs of endagered architecture, laser-light drawings and the Maîtresse slideshow, last seen at MoMA (2017-2018) in the CLUB 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village 1978-1983 Exhibition.
24 works — View portfolio