Ryerson Image Centre’s Burn With Desire: Photography and Glamour and Anti Glamour: Portraits of Women

Art enthusiasts, media denizen and Ryerson staff alike gathered at the Ryerson Image Centre last Tuesday for a special preview of the Ryerson Image Centre’s newest exhibitions, Burn With Desire: Photography and Glamour and Anti Glamour: Portraits of Women. The former, a multimedia exhibition that offers a carefully curated yet comprehensive view of photography’s role in defining glamour, showcased everything from rare snapshots of Marilyn Monroe at the height of fame to a collection of the Annie Leibovitz-shot iconic Vanity Fair annual Hollywood issue covers. The latter, Anti Glamour: Portraits of Women, stood in stark juxtaposition; it addressed issues of female subjectivity and representation via photo and video. Highlights include a portrait series featuring masked, bare-breasted women, confronting conventional ideas of the female form, and a projected video of a female figure, submerged under water as if suspended, a commentary on female vulnerability and seduction. Also joining the crowd were Paul Roth, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, Sheldon Levy, President and Vice Chancellor of Ryerson, and most notably, esteemed Canadian journalist and Ryerson alum Valerie Pringle, also Chair of Ryerson’s Blue and Gold Society.

Burn With Desire: Photography and Glamour and Anti Glamour: Portraits of Women will be on display and open to the public until April 5, 2015.