Annie Leibovitz Champions Powerful Women in 'New Portraits'

The powerful, feminine energy inside Bayview Correctional Facility, a decommissioned women’s prison, is palpable. Here, in an old gym with scuffed wooden floors and industrial, caged windows, temporary partitions display newly commissioned work by living-legend Annie Leibovitz, perhaps the preeminent portrait photographer working today. WOMEN: New Portraits, commissioned by UBS, is a continuation of Women, Leibovitz’s enduringly popular series of female-focused photographs from 1999.

Bayview is a fitting locale to house this leg of the exhibition’s international tour, which is bringing WOMEN: New Portraits to audiences in ten different global cities. The former medium-security prison is being reinvented as The Women’s Building, a hub of activism and engagement and a refuge for women from all walks of life.

The photos on the walls—and displayed on giant, rolling screens—represent some of the most inspiring women on the planet. A portrait of Marina Abramović with a python wound around around her nude form is nestled beneath a black and white study of Patti Smith at home in the Rockaways. There’s a picture of Secretary Hillary Clinton at her desk, featuring a decorative paperweight that says, “Never Never Never Give Up.” Malala Yousafzai gazes at us alongside Joan Didion, Lena Dunham, Serena and Venus Williams, and many other amazing human beings.

The incredible assemblage of girl power is partly thanks to Leibovitz’s portfolio; she’s been documenting popular culture for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Vogue since the early 1970s. But she turned to her longtime friend Gloria Steinem, the illustrious political activist and women’s advocate, to help people the portraits with diverse, inspiring women campaigning for equal rights all over the globe.

“I made a small list, thinking of women who are in our collective consciousness who have achieved something. And then, it was really funny, because I went to Gloria and asked her for a list, and I’d like to frame that list, because it goes on and on and on,” Leibovitz recalls during an exhibition preview at Bayview. “It was like 23 pages long. Economists, people over my head, but incredible women, and slowly, over the last year, Gloria has inspired me to be more aware of the issues and photograph people like Andréa Medina Rosas here, who is a human rights lawyer in Mexico City and who won the first case for women murdered along the US-Mexico border.”

“I didn’t know how to photograph the issues, but slowly… you’ll see there’s a small list on the side, here, because we’re continuing to take photographs as the show continues. It’s a work in progress; it’s not definitive. It’s meant to look like it’s still building, because it is, and we still are,” Leibovitz says.

An integral component of WOMEN: New Portraits is a series of talking circles co-hosted by Leibovitz and Steinem to give voice to the myriad challenges facing women today. Their Women for Women talks empower participants to share their own stories and air thoughts and grievances addressing topics of global and local relevance to women's rights.

At a gathering on November 16, held in conjunction with the exhibition opening, discussion dealt with the aftermath of the 2016 election and the looming administration of President-Elect Donald Trump, whose edicts threaten women’s rights—as well as human rights. The audience included formerly-incarcerated women who had once resided at Bayview, and who shared their feelings on the surreal nature of returning to a building that, while it was operational, had the highest rate of inmate-alleged sexual abuse by prison staff in the nation.

The conversation dissected the internalized oppression of white female Trump supporters, whose votes effectively handed Trump the election. Steinem also discussed the anthropological sources of patriarchy, which she believes stems from a desire to control reproduction. Women asked about how to talk to children about Trump’s bigotry, how to make a difference, and how to heal the news media, which many argue gave Trump more than $2 million in free advertising.

“Speaking for myself, I am concerned, I am worried, but I also know that the popular vote, two million more people, voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Trump. And it’s also true that all of the issues that we consider human rights issues have majority support in all of our public opinion polls. In some sense, it is the success of social justice movements that have, in part, caused a backlash against change,” Steinem says.

“In very short order, this country is going to no longer be a majority white, European-American country. The first generation of majority babies of color has already been born. And there are people who were born into, through no fault of theirs, an idea of racial hierarchy that is in backlash against this,” Steinem continues. “We understand it is more complex than that, but I think a truth has been revealed that we must now deal with. Never again will anybody say post-feminist or post-racial, because now we understand that something like a third of the country is still locked into these old hierarchies.”

In addition to the talking circles, the programming surrounding WOMEN: New Portraits includes education programs, like photography workshops in partnership with the International Center of Photography (ICP), Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, and The New York University Tisch School of the Arts. But at the heart of the exhibition is the opportunity to foster dialogue and empathy, two initiatives Steinem sees as simple yet critical steps towards healing the nation.

“We are at a time of maximum danger in this country, and we need to look after each other and see the true diversity of human beings, male and female," she says. "But it is also true that, just as we would not tell anyone to go back into a violent household, we will not tell each other to go back. And even though it’s a time of danger, maybe we are about to be free.”

WOMEN: New Portraits is on view through December 11, 2016. Three additional talking circles will take place on the evenings of December 5, 6, and 7. To sign up, click here.

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