Oglesby Gallery opens Ladies' Bar
Photo exhibition of prostitutes in Guadalajara makes U.S. debut at FSU
Photo exhibition of prostitutes in Guadalajara makes U.S. debut at FSU
Felicite Fallon
FSView-Florida Flambeau
Issue date: 11/26/07
A woman with garish makeup and severe eyebrows sits thoughtfully in a lawnchair in front of a cracked, peeling wall. A woman clad in a leopard-print halter licks her lips, a plastic cup in her hand. A young girl twirls her hair, a half-smile on her face.
Photographer John Sevigny spent 10 months in Mexico capturing these and hundreds of other images in the cantinas of Guadalajara. His photo exhibition, Ladies' Bar, will be making its U.S. debut at Florida State University beginning Nov. 30 in the Oglesby Gallery in the Student Union with a reception at 7 p.m.
The exhibition contains 25 black-and-white images of prostitutes and paid drinking companions of those who frequent the cantinas or small bars which fascinated Sevigny.
"They don't have swinging doors like cowboy bars, like you would imagine," Sevigny said. "They have big garage-type doors, and a wall behind it, so nobody can see what's happening inside. That always drew my curiosity. It's really an interesting world and an interesting subculture."
Sevigny, a native of Miami, worked as a mainstream journalist for nearly 10 years before branching off to do independent work. His photographs have been displayed in Florida, Colorado, Louisiana, New York and several cities throughout Mexico, including Monterrey and Zacatecas.
According to Sevigny, his approach to photography enabled him to develop a more personal relationship with those he was photographing."I am pretty good at getting people to open up to me," Sevigny said.
"Photography is really sensitive. I think one of the things that made it work and got past that delicacy in this particular project is that I allowed the women or even pushed them to have the photographs taken on their terms. I very much was offering to take their pictures, rather than saying, 'I'm going to take your picture, please do this.'"
Despite the socially-conscious nature of the project, Sevigny said he does not consider himself a documentary photographer. The exhibition consists primarily of posed photographs - their poses chosen either by the women or by Sevigny. Posing the photographs, Sevigny said, helped him capture "the full range of expressions" of the women, both the powerful and the powerless, bringing home the humanity of the women.
"Nobody says 'I want to be a prostitute when I grow up,'" he said. "Almost all of the women are single mothers. It's something they're doing because of economic and social reality. For a woman over 35 who has high school education or less, it's very hard to find work (in Mexico). It's really a question of survival. Nobody's holding a gun to their heads, but at the same time, when there are no other options, someone might as well be holding a gun to your head. It's a kind of economic slavery."
Sevigny said that the bleak circumstances in which he immersed himself took an emotional toll on him.
"One of the difficult things about this was dealing with the depression," he said. "I'd go home and just be dead. There was this one girl who told me she was going to sleep in the cantina. The cantina closes at 3 a.m. and she sleeps there on a cot in the back. I said, 'That's dangerous, why don't you go home?' And she said, 'I'd rather be sleeping here and risk getting raped, then go home and know I'm going to get raped by my uncle.'"
Although Sevigny did not embark on his project with the intent of bringing about social change, he hopes his work can help people get a larger picture of what is out in the world."
I don't have a lot of faith in the idea of photos changing the world," he said. "I see myself as putting a mirror in society's face, which I think is something that needs to be done from time to time, so that society can see itself and say, 'Do we like who we are? What are we doing?' My parents come from the '60s generation. They were going to change the world. I never really thought that the pictures I take could bring an end to the problem. I just hope that they can offer people a glimpse of the humanity that exists in even the ugliest of places."
Sevigny also said he has a larger motivation in expanding people's horizons through his photography.
"I want people to understand a little bit about what immigrants who come to the United States are running away from," he said. "Mexico's a beautiful country and people here wear shirts and ties, and there are very rich people and a lot more very poor people, but people who come to the States are running away from something."
The exhibition will run until Dec. 14. For more information, visit gonecity.blogspot.com or union.fsu.edu/gallery/.
