Introduction

Geometry of Time: Francesca Woodman

and the Kantian Sublime

“These  appearances  can  never  contain  anything  but  

what  geometry  prescribes  to  them.”
—Immanuel  Kant,  Prolegomena  to  Any  Future  Metaphysics

“These  things  arrived  from  my  grandmothers[.]  [T]hey  make  me  

think  about  where  I  fit  in  this  odd  geometry  of  time.”
—Francesca  Woodman,  Some Disordered Interior Geometries

I   first   saw   the   American   photographer   Francesca   Woodman’s   (1958–81)  

work  in  an  exhibit  titled  “The  Disembodied  Spirit,” curated  by  Alison  Ferris  
in  Brunswick,  Maine.2  The  scene  of  this  initial  encounter  intimated  some  of  
the   central   problems   of   the   sublime:   the   disorienting   risk   of   the   sublime,  
the  way  that  the  sublime  overwhelms  the  observer.  For,  having  arrived  at  
Bowdoin  College  Museum  on  a  bi erly  cold  winter  day,  helping  my  toddler  
from  the  car,  I  had  bumped  my  head  hard  on  the  car  roof  and  consequently  
met   Woodman’s   work   not   only   in   a   context   of   nineteenth-­‐‑century   spirit  
photographs   but   also,   possibly,   in   a   mildly   concussed   state.   A   central  
aspect  of  the  sublime—that  it  overwhelms  the  viewer,  reversing  the  power  
dynamic  between  the  active  gaze  and  the  passive  object  gazed  upon—was  
structured,  then,  into  my  introduction  to  Woodman’s  work.  That  a ernoon,  

1   The   phrase   appears   in   Woodman’s   text   wri en   below   two   photographs   in  

Some Disordered Interior Geometries,  reproduced  in  Chris  Townsend,  Francesca  Woodman  
(Oxford:  Phaidon  Press,  2006),  238.
2   Alison   Ferris,   “The   Disembodied   Spirit,”   The   Disembodied   Spirit   Exhibition  
Catalog  (Brunswick,  ME:  Bowdoin  College  Museum  of  Art,  2003),  32–43.
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seeing   images   from   the   House series,   the   Angel   series,   and   “Self-­‐‑Portrait  
Talking  to  Vince,”  I  was  struck  by  the  risk  entailed  in  the  work.  Unlike  the  
photographic   records   of   the   “disembodied   spirit”   in   the   context   of   which  
Woodman’s   pictures   at   Bowdoin   appeared,   Woodman’s   photographs   of  
herself  radically  disallow  the  comfort  of  an  easily  separated  soul  and  body.  
Indeed,  it  struck  me  that  the  photographs  expressed  unusual  claims  in  their  
visual  address  of  ontology.  In  their  paradoxical  blurring  and  emphasizing  of  
the  body,  Woodman’s  pictures  pose  questions  about  the  limits  of  subjectivity  
in  materiality.
Ferris’s   decision   to   place   Woodman’s   photographs   with   nineteenth-­‐‑
century  spirit  photographs  is  itself  a  fascinating  move.  Woodman’s  work,  
which  o en  has  been  received  as  biographical  revelation,  as  bare  sincerity,  
was   here   juxtaposed   with   spirit   photography,   which   can   be   understood  
as  a  trick  to  make  mourners  believe  the  photograph  has  indeed  captured  
the  image  of  the  departing  soul.  Ferris’s  exhibit  suggested  to  me  a  way  to  
read  Woodman’s  work  not  as  the  visual  confession  of  a  troubled  psyche,  
a   youthful   suicide,   but   rather   as   an   interrogation   of   the   very   terms   of  
photography,   an   interrogation   both   of   the   “tricks”   that   photography   can  
play  and,  significantly,  of  the  idea  that  aesthetics  override  tricks.  Indeed,  
this  placing  of  photography  at  the  heart  of  the  problem  of  the  aesthetic—
the   question   of   whether   aesthetic   effects   are   tricks,   illusions,   or   eruptive  
markers   of   the   real—seems   to   me   Woodman’s   stroke   of   genius.   Her  
pictures   remind   us   that   photography   in   its   liminality,   historically   placed  
between   science   and   art,   between   personal   record   and   public   exhibition,  
forces  key  questions  of  the  aesthetic,  and  does  so  by  visually  invoking  the  
sublime.  The  role  of  the  frame,  which  Jacques  Derrida’s  Truth in Painting  
argues   is   foundational   to   the   sublime,   is   essential   to   photography   in   a  
highly  determinative  fashion.3  Nothing  else  determines  the  photograph’s  
existence  like  the  frame  and  Woodman’s  mark,  I  will  argue,  is  her  multiply  
approached   tilting   of   the   frame.   Likewise,   questions   of   power   in   the  
gaze   coalesce   around   photography’s   necessity   of   capturing   what   in   an  
irreducible  sense  was  there,  stipulating  the  gesture  of  capturing  the  image  
as   opposed   to   painting’s   gesture   of   recollecting   the   image.4   Woodman’s  
awareness  of  her  medium  as  a  kind  of  devil’s  crossroads  in  aesthetic  theory  
evinced  in  her  orchestrated  troubling  of  the  frame  seems  to  me  a  source  of  
her  images’  power.  Indeed,  when  I  first  saw  her  work  at  Bowdoin,  I  was  
unaware  of  her  biography.

3   Jacques  Derrida,  The Truth in Painting,  trans.  Geoff  Bennington  and  Ian  McLeod  
(Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1987).
4   See   Roland   Barthes,   Camera   Lucida:   Reflections   on   Photography,   trans.   Richard  
Howard  (New  York:  Hill  and  Wang,  1982).
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Maria  DiBa ista  provocatively  argues  for  a  connection  between  the  woman  
artist  and  scandal,  and  it  is  true  that  the  scandal  of  Woodman’s  suicide,  dead  
by   her   own   hand   at   twenty-­‐‑two,   makes   its   way   into   many   interpretations  
of   her   photographs.   While   acknowledging   with   DiBa ista   the   power   of  
biography  in  shaping  an  artist’s  reputation,  I  also  argue  for  the  validity  of  
distinguishing  reception  history  from  aesthetic  content.  In  this  book,  I  will  
be  structuring  a  distance  from  reception  history  readings,  focusing  instead  
on  the  connection  between  Woodman’s  photography  and  the  enduring  and  
troubling  concept  of  the  sublime.6  Developing  from  earlier  feminist  revisions  of  
the  sublime,  I  suggest  that  Kant’s  sublime,  theorized  in  the  Critique of Judgement  
as  a  disturbing  and  powerful  species  of  aesthetic  experience,  indeed  a  limit  of  
the  aesthetic,  helps  us  to  interpret  Woodman’s  work,  and  I  also  contend  that  
Woodman’s   work   calls   us   to   reinterpret   the   Kantian   sublime.7   Regardless   of  
whether   Woodman   thought   of   her   self-­‐‑portraits   as   “theoretical   objects,”   or  
theory-­‐‑producing  objects  (Mieke  Bal’s  concept,  to  which  I  will  return),  she  was  
interrogating  the  Kantian  sublime  by  making  work  that  is  about  the  gendered  
problem  of  seeing,  seeing  herself  through  and  as  photographic  image.  Writing  
of  Louise  Bourgeois’s  Spider,  Mieke  Bal  suggests  that  the  work  itself  generates  
and  concretizes  theory,  that  it  does  not  passively  receive  the  inscription  of  
theory  but  instead  produces  theory.  Although  the  photograph’s  status  as  object  
can  be  contested,  I  extrapolate  from  Bal  to  argue  that  Woodman’s  photographs  
are  not  passive  receptacles  of  aesthetic  theory  but  rather  interrogate,  alter,  and  
generate   that   theory.   Kant’s   complex   understanding   of   the   sublime,   reason’s  
boundary,   offers   a   useful   template   for   understanding   Woodman’s   powerful  
photographs,  and  in  turn  Woodman’s  photographs  revise  how  we  interpret  the  
Kantian  sublime.
In   particular,   this   revision   speaks   to   feminist   concerns   with   Kant’s  
aesthetics.  Barbara  Claire  Freeman’s  The  Feminine  Sublime  and  Lynda  Nead’s  
The  Female  Nude  both  significantly  ally  Kant’s  sublime  with  violence  against  

5   Maria   DiBa ista,   “Scandalous   Ma er:   Women   Artists   and   the   Crisis   of  
Embodiment,”  in  Women  Artists  at  the  Millennium,  ed.  Carol  Armstrong  and  Catherine  
de  Zegher  (Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press,  2006),  427–37.
6   I  realize  that  one  could  raise  the  question  of  whether  the  Enlightenment  sublime  
retains   validity   at   all   in   our   contemporary   discourse.   My   argument   is   that   in   terms  
of   Woodman’s   work   it   does—as   Townsend   makes   the   point,   her   work   extends   from  
the  European  tradition.  For  a  larger  discussion  of  the  contemporary  usefulness  of  the  
Kantian  sublime,  see  Jonathan  Loesberg,  A  Return  to  Aesthetics:  Autonomy,  Indifference,  
and Postmodernism  (Stanford:  Stanford  University  Press,  2005),  1–13.
7   Immanuel  Kant,  Critique of Judgement,  ed.  Nicholas  Walker,  trans.  James  Creed  
Meredith  (Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press,  2007).
8   Mieke   Bal,   Louise   Bourgeois’   Spider:   The   Architecture   of   Art-­‐‑Writing   (Chicago:  
University  of  Chicago  Press,  2001),  5.
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femininity,   against   the   female   body,   while   Patricia   Yaeger   in   “Towards  

a   Female   Sublime”   also   contends   with   the   fraught   place   of   gender   in  
the   sublime.   While   Nead’s   and   Freeman’s   understanding   of   a   violent  
relationship   between   the   frame   and   the   body   coheres   with   my   sense   of  
Kant’s  aesthetics  as  steeped  in  the  problem  of  power  differentials,  I  believe  
that  already  implicit  in  Kant’s  sublime  is  an  ungendered  space,  or  a  space  
of  such  excessive  power  and  force  that  it  exposes  and  ravels  the  pretense  of  
gender.  I  will  be  departing,  then,  from  more  traditional  feminist  readings  of  
Kant.  While  honoring  the  importance  of  their  recognition  of  the  tradition  in  
the  aesthetic  of  violence  directed  against  the  female  or  feminized  body,  I  will  
suggest  that  Kant’s  influential  sublime  does  not  so  much  thematize  violence  
against  femininity  as  it  maps  a  violence  that  disrupts  and  evaporates  gender,  
not   destroying   femininity   specifically   but   rather   broadly   effacing   gender  
designations,  in  the  sublime  as  limit  or  boundary  of  the  aesthetic.
If   texts   theorizing   affect,   such   as   Sianne   Ngai’s   Ugly   Feelings,   have  
appropriated  Kant’s  sublime  as  affect,  in  this  book  I  hope  to  make  clear  the  
work   that   aesthetics   can   perform   when   not   subsumed   under   the   rubric   of  
mood.10  Of  course,  Woodman’s  images  can  evoke  moods  in  her  audience;  or,  
as   Derrida   puts   it,   in   response   to   the   sublime,   one   appropriately   mourns.  
But   by   inserting,   for   example,   disgust   in   the   place   of   the   sublime,   Ngai  
misunderstands  the  structured  freight  of  perception  that  Kant  loads  into  the  
sublime.12  It  is  in  that  terrain  of  an  architectonic  theorization  of  perception  that  
I  will  show  Woodman  intervenes.  Rather  than  interpreting  Kant’s  sublime  as  
affect,  then,  I  engage  the  Critique of Judgement  through  its  efforts  to  theorize  
the   aesthetic   as   structure.   The   Kantian   sublime   turns   on   a   declension,   or  
recognition,   of  the  separation  between  the  aesthetic  and  mood,  tone,  affect.  
Woodman’s   rigorous   work   may   evoke   a   mood   in   audiences,   but   that   affect  
is  not  intrinsic  to  the  photographs.  Separating  the  cultic,  affective  “Francesca  
Woodman”   created   by   reception   history   from   the   architectonic,   theoretical
objects   of   her   photographs   is   a   goal   of   this   study.   It   aims   to   recuperate   the  

9   Barbara   Claire   Freeman,   The   Feminine   Sublime:   Gender   and   Excess   in   Women’s  
Fiction  (Berkeley:  University  of  California  Press,  1995);  Lynda  Nead,  The  Female  Nude:  
Art,   Obscenity   and   Sexuality   (London:   Routledge,   1992);   Patricia   Yaeger,   “Towards   a  
Female  Sublime,”  in  Gender  and  Theory:  Dialogues  on  Feminist  Theory,  ed.  Linda  Kaufman  
(Oxford:  Blackwell,  1989),  191–212.
10   Sianne  Ngai,  Ugly  Feelings  (Cambridge,  MA:  Harvard  University  Press,  2005),  
334–35.
11   Derrida,  Truth in Painting,  44.
12   Here,  I  direct  the  reader  to  Ngai’s  Ugly  Feelings,  especially  the  chapter  that  coins  
the  term  “stuplimity”  (248–98).  Her  concept  of  “stuplimity”  is  obviated  by  a  consideration  
of  the  way  that  repetition  is  already  fully  and  indeed  even  comprehensively  considered  
by  the  Critique of Judgement  itself,  in  the  concept  of  magnitude,  for  example  (272).
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sublime   as   distinct   from   affect.   Insofar   as   we   want   to   meet   Kant   where   he  

lives   and   hope   to   meet   Woodman   where   she   lives,   in   her   photographs,   we  
cannot   interpret   the   sublime   as   a   feeling   or   even   as   usefully   comparable   to  
states  of  feeling.  Rather,  as  I  believe  Woodman’s  photographs  make  clear,  the  
work  of  the  sublime  as  aesthetic  category  inheres  in  the  way  it  troubles  the  
conceptual  and  bodily  threshold  around  the  always  elusive  gesture  of  seeing.  
Seeing  emerges  as  a  boundary  disturbance,  a  problematic  of  structural  space:  
the  more  the  subject  sees,  the  more  disturbing.
Moreover,  Kant’s  aesthetics  and  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits  throw  into  relief,  
place  into  the  gaze,  what  Teresa  de  Lauretis  calls  the  trauma of gender:  a  violent  
moment   of   vision   that   ineluctably   structurally   must   precede   the   subject’s  
response   to   it.13   Gender   as   cultural   construct,   however   notionally   correct,  
is   overwhelmed   at   the   crux   of   the   aesthetic,   the   terrain   that   Woodman’s  
disturbing  photographs  mine.  Indeed,  this  problem  of  the  aesthetic  arguably  
is   the   crux   of   gender.   This   is   not   to   say   that   I   am   arguing   for   the   aesthetic  
as   proof   of   essentialized   gender   roles.   On   the   contrary,   I   am   arguing   that  
the   troubling   remainder   of   gender   (that   which   resists   postfeminist   theories  
of  gender  undone)  surfaces  in  the  problem  of  the  sublime,  this  problematic  
interlocking   of   power   and   the   gaze,   of   formalization   and   the   impossible   to  
inscribe  rules  of  form.
In  reading  for  the  problem  of  gender  in  the  sublime,  we  yet  can  interrogate  
its  violence,  its  capacity  to  violate  the  subject.  Woodman’s  interpretation  of  the  
aesthetic  through  photography  a ends  to  Kant’s  notion  of  the  sublime  as  that  
which  paradoxically  can  be  theorized  and  violates  theorization.  Woodman’s  
photographs’  distinctive  combination  of  self-­‐‑portrait,  blur,  and  de-­‐‑centering  
similarly  intervene  in  notions  of  the  centrality  of  the  subject,  that  watchword  
of  humanism,  and  significantly  interrogate  the  problem  of  the  gaze  displaced  
from  the  body  through  the  mechanism  of  photography.  The  camera’s  eye  is  
the  logical  extension  of  Enlightenment  privileging  of  rationality  as  the  clearest  
vision—the  ultimate  eye  being  that  glass  lens  uncannily  displaced  from  the  
body.14   Woodman’s   photographs,   signifying   key   terms   of   the   sublime,   play  
through  the  problem  of  the  displaced  camera-­‐‑eye  and  the  regressive  Romantic  
trope  of  the  interior  eye,  the  gaze  as  repository  of  memory.
Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits,  in  their  emphasis  on  the  gendered  self—reprising,  
redressing,   and   troubling   the   tradition   of   the   female   nude—articulate  
photography   as   the   embodiment   of   the   Enlightenment   gaze,   a   mechanistic  

13   Teresa   de   Lauretis,   Technologies   of   Gender:   Essays   on   Theory,   Film,   and   Fiction  

(Bloomington:  Indiana  University  Press,  1987),  21,  23.
14   Even  as  Geoffrey  Batchen  persuasively  argues  for  photography’s  foundational  
links  with  Romanticism,  I  point  out  that  an  understanding  of  Romanticism  itself  must  
include  Kant’s  historical  role  with  regard  to  the  Jenna  Romantics.  See  Batchen,  Burning
with  Desire:  The  Conception  of  Photography  (Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press,  1997).
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rational   gaze,   and   confront   this   problematic   of   vision   with   the   gazed   upon  
apparently  female  body.  For  Woodman,  the  female  body  functions  as  a  kind  
of   lure   and   collapse,   drawing   the   mechanized   gaze   of   the   camera   but   also  
implicated  in  the  production  of  that  gaze,  the  body  itself  mechanized.
Woodman’s   virtuosic   revelation   of   the   relationship   between   architecture  
and  the  body  ties  her  photography  to  Kant’s  sublime  through  a  shared  gesture  
of  founding  the  aesthetic  on  the  body’s  relationship  to  space  as  inhabitation,  
as  house.16  As  Bachelard  makes  clear,  “No  dreamer  ever  remains  indifferent  
for   long   to   a   picture   of   a   house.”17   The   dream   of   the   aesthetic   inaugurated  
in   Kant’s   sublime   is   a   dream   configured   architecturally,   and   Woodman  
both   inhabits   this   configuration   and   troubles   it—showing   the   threatened  
status   of   the   female   form   in   the   architecture   of   aesthetic   formalization   and  
also,   in   entering   the   house   of   aesthetic   formalization,   deploying   its   violent  
propensities  for  her  interrogations  of  the  gaze.
Drawing   from   Sarah   Kofman’s   theorization,   in   The   Camera   Obscura   of  
Ideology,   of   the   camera   as   metaphor   for   the   gaze,   I   argue   that   Woodman’s  
images  interrogate  the  camera’s  gaze  as  both  engendered  by  and  revelatory  
of  Enlightenment  notions  of  perception.  Concurring  with  Geoffrey  Batchen’s  
reservations  about  finding  the  historical  “origin”  story  of  photography,  I  point  
to   Kofman’s   Camera   Obscura’s   example   of   refusing   to   locate   a   pure   or   real  
origin  of  photography  and  instead  understanding  photography  as  metaphor.  
When  I  refer  to  the  camera  obscura,  then,  I  am  referring  more  to  its  work  as  
metaphor   than   to   the   camera   obscura   object.   I   understand   as   Kofman   does  
the  work  and  implications  of  that  cultural  metaphor  which  is  photography.  
In   such   an   understanding,   the   very   problem   that   Batchen   highlights   of   the  
story  of  origins—“this  historical  move,  this  gesture  to  an  originary  moment  
of   birth”—   is   itself   elided.20   In   metaphor,   of   course,   there   is   no   origin,   but  

15   Adorno  and  Horkheimer,  for  example,  discuss  the  “operation  of  the  intellectual  
mechanism  which  structures  perception  in  accordance  with  the  understanding”  in  The
Dialectic of Enlightenment.  See  Theodor  W.  Adorno  and  Max  Horkheimer,  The Dialectic
of Enlightenment, trans.  John  Gumming  (London:  Verso,  1997),  82.
16   Noting   Woodman’s   tendency   to   photograph   interiors,   I   refer   readers   to  
Paul   de   Man’s   interpretation   of   Kant’s   aesthetic   as   fundamentally   architectonic.   See  
“Phenomenality   and   Materiality   in   Kant”   and   “Kant’s   Materialism”   in   Aesthetic  
Ideology,  ed.  Andrzej  Warminski  (Minneapolis:  University   of   Minnesota  Press,  1996),  
70–91,  119–28.
17   Gaston  Bachelard,  The Poetics of Space,  trans.  Maria  Jolas,  1964  (Boston:  Beacon,  
1994),  49.
18   Sarah   Kofman,   Camera   Obscura   of   Ideology,   trans.   Will   Straw   (Ithaca:   Cornell  
University  Press,  1999).
19   Batchen,  Burning  with  Desire,  17.
20   Ibid.,  17–18.
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rather  two  terms  clarifying  and  contending  with  one  another.  My  interest  in  
understanding  Woodman’s  interaction  with  the  sublime  is  not  to  claim  that  
she  revises  some  always  unprovable  “pure”  Enlightenment  origin  as  rather  to  
suggest  that  she  participates  in  and  interrogates  the  same  problems  emergent  
and  still  unresolved,  or  tense  and  intent,  in  Kant’s  approach  to  the  problem  
of  the  seeing  subject,  of  seeing  the  subject,  and  of  surviving  seeing  and  being  
seen.
Woodman’s   fame,   placed   as   it   is   in   a   troublingly   passive   position   by  
her   suicide,   is   made   scandalously   feminine   (speaking   descriptively   not  
normatively).   But   the   cause   of   her   posthumous   approach,   like   any   suicide,  
bears  an  impenetrable  illegibility  and  cannot  be  read  as  preordained.21  Since  
her  death  just  shy  of  her  twenty-­‐‑third  birthday,  Woodman  has  been  steadily  
accumulating  critical  a ention  and  acclaim.  Abigail  Solomon-­‐‑Godeau’s  1986  
essay   “Just   Like   A   Woman,”   noted   by   Peggy   Phelan   to   have   introduced  
Woodman   to   a   national   audience,   placed   Woodman   in   feminist   discourse  
even   as   the   photographer’s   self-­‐‑portraits   reflexively   established   some   of  
that   discourse.22   Solomon-­‐‑Godeau,   Ann   Gabhart,   and   Rosalind   Krauss,  
who   collaborated   in   creating   the   important   Wellesley   College   catalogue   of  
Woodman’s  work,  established  her  as  a  photographer  who  informs  parameters  
of  self-­‐‑representation  for  a  subsequent  generation.23

21   Recent   research   in   the   field   of   psychology   emphasizes   the   newly   emerging  

understanding   of   many   suicides   as   impulsive   acts—not   fated   and   inevitable   but   in  
some  real  sense  random,  or  at  least  evitable.  See,  for  a  quick  but  good  overview,  Sco  
Anderson,  “The  Urge  to  End  it  All,”  New  York  Times,  July  6,  2008.
22   See   Abigail   Solomon-­‐‑Godeau,   “Just   Like   a   Woman,”   in   Francesca   Woodman:  
Photographic   Work,   April   9–June   8,   1986,   ed.   Abigail   Solomon-­‐‑Godeau,   Ann   Gabhart,  
and   Rosalind   Woodman   Krauss   (Wellesley,   MA:   Wellesley   College   Museum),   11–35,  
and   Peggy   Phelan,   “Francesca   Woodman’s   Photography:   Death   and   the   Image   One  
More  Time,”  Signs  27,  no.  4  (2002):  984.
23   If   Solomon-­‐‑Godeau’s   essay,   “Just   Like   a   Woman,”   published   seven   years  
a er  Woodman’s  death,  effectively  implied  Woodman’s  viability  as  a  canonical  artist,  
a   privileging   reflective   of   Solomon-­‐‑Godeau’s   own   high   standing   as   a   critic,   Peggy  
Phelan’s  2002  “Francesca  Woodman’s  Photography”  in  its  turn  continued  the  trend  of  
using  Woodman’s  posthumous  oeuvre  as  exemplary  of  the  problematic  of  the  female  
artist  in  the  late  twentieth  century  while  reflexively  strengthening  the  photographer’s  
reputation  as  an  artist  about  whom  critics  write.  Eva  Rus  has  joined  Solomon-­‐‑Godeau  
in  interpreting  Woodman  as  a  feminist  surrealist  (“Surrealism  and  Self-­‐‑Representation  
in   the   Photography   of   Francesca   Woodman,”   49th   Parallel,   Spring   2005),   while   Jui-­‐‑
Ch’i  Liu  argues  that  Woodman’s  oeuvre  symbolizes  a  longing  to  return  to  the  womb  
(“Francesca  Woodman’s  Self-­‐‑Images:  Transforming  Bodies  in  the  Space  of  Femininity,”  
Woman’s  Art  Journal  25,  no.  1  [2004]:  26–31),  and  Jesse  Hoffman  is  developing  an  essay  
tracking  the  emblems  of  Ophelia  in  Woodman’s  work  (personal  communication,  May,  
2009).   Essays   on   Woodman’s   photography   have   appeared   in   journals   ranging   from  
the   Atlantic   Monthly   to   the   Nation   to   Artforum   to   the   Observer   Magazine,   suggesting  
          

Woodman’s  cult  status  as  a  prodigy,  literally  an  otherworldly  phenomenon,  

and   the   dramatic,   self-­‐‑imposed   truncation   of   her   career   by   suicide   haunt  
most  critical  readings  of  her  work.  As  Rosalind  Krauss  discusses  in  her  essay  
“Francesca   Woodman:   Problem   Sets,”   the   bulk   of   Woodman’s   photographs  
were   made   while   the   photographer   was   still   a   student   at   the   Rhode   Island  
School  of  Design.24  Chris  Townsend  has  extended  the  notion  of  Woodman  as  
eternal  student,  insisting  that  we  must  “never  let  go  of  the  fact”  of  Woodman’s  
identity  as  a  “schoolgirl”  while  she  was  making  her  photographs,  an  encoding  
of  gender  as  diminishment,  covertly  signaling  the  trope  of  the  femme-­‐‑enfant,  
to  which  I  will  return.25  Yet  the  ramifications  of  her  age,  like  the  interpretive  
valences  of  her  suicide,  are  complex.26  While  theorizations  of  Woodman’s  age  
and  gender—criticisms  that  implicitly  focus  on  the  history  of  her  reception—
may  be  quite  valid,  it  is  important  to  notice  that  Woodman  herself  commented  
on  her  role  as  femme-­‐‑enfant  in  a  highly  self-­‐‑conscious,  allusive,  lifelong  self-­‐‑
portrait  project,  work  commenting  on  and  shaping  the  aesthetic.
And   yet   her   great   topic   is   the   problem   of   self-­‐‑consciousness   as   the  
vanishing   point   of   the   gaze.   The   virtuosic   effect   that   Woodman   achieves   in  
her  photographs  stems  from  her  images’  interplay  between  the  performance  
of   that   cultural   icon   the   “schoolgirl”   and   the   self-­‐‑possessed   gaze   of   the  
artist,  herself,  taking  the  photograph—a  gaze  that  frames  the  rhetoric  of  her  
performance  of  femme-­‐‑enfant.  The  self-­‐‑portrait  of  the  artist  as  a  young  woman  

Woodman’s   broad   cultural   reach—as   does   her   well-­‐‑supported   Wikipedia   entry  

(“Francesca   Woodman,”   Wikipedia,   The   Free   Encyclopedia,   rev.   August   10,   2008,  
<h p://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Francesca_Woodman&oldid=289941783>,  
accessed  August  18,  2008).
24   Rosalind   Krauss,   “Francesca   Woodman:   Problem   Sets,”   in   Bachelors  
(Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press,  1989),  161–77.
25   Townsend,   Francesca   Woodman,   6.   Townsend   also   claims   that   “Woodman  
never  understood  herself  as  a  fully  realized  artist,”  even  though  there  is  no  evidence  
to   support   the   idea   that   Woodman   was   ignorant   of   her   accomplishment,   and   he  
problematically  makes  the  sweeping  claim  that  Woodman  was  not  in  full  control  of  her  
materials  (6).  Without  question,  Woodman  was  a  prodigy,  creating  her  oeuvre  between  
the  ages  of  13  and  22.  However,  that  does  not  definitively  mean  that  she  was  unaware  
of  her  accomplishments  or  not  in  control  of  the  creation  of  her  art.  One  remembers,  
for   example,   the   French   writer  Arthur   Rimbaud   as   a   major   poet   whose   oeuvre   was  
produced  in  his  extreme  youth.  Indeed,  Townsend’s  monograph  mentions  Rimbaud,  
calling  him  not  a  schoolboy  but  a  poet  (57).
26   The   question   raised   by   Rosalind   Krauss   of   whether   Woodman   worked  
in   problem   sets   subtly   but   importantly   differs   from   Townsend’s   use   of   the   term  
“schoolgirl,”   for   Krauss   implicitly   points   us   toward   Woodman’s   engagement   with  
mathematics,   a   concern   in   accord   with   the   geometry   school   workbook   that   signally  
informed  and  shaped  the  one  book  published  during  Woodman’s  lifetime.  I  privilege  
Woodman’s  conceptualization  of  this  book  precisely  because  it  is  a  book  that  she  herself  
shaped  from  beginning  to  end  in  her  lifetime.  See  Krauss,  “Problem  Sets,”  161–77.
 :       

becomes   Woodman’s   uncanny   gesture   toward   the   gendered   mark   of   the  

“schoolgirl,”   a   figure   secured   by   her   repetitive   use   of   Mary   Janes   as   fetish  
object,   for   example,   and   by   her   self-­‐‑portraits’   dramatization   of   the   contrast  
between  her  usually  disrobed,  sexually  maturing  body  and  her  still  cherubic,  
rounded  face.  Admi edly,  the  question  of  whether  Woodman’s  photographs  
of  herself  are  self-­‐‑portraits  is  open  to  debate.  Woodman  photographs  herself,  
or  young  women  who  double  as  herself,  not  to  fasten  identity  but  to  trouble  
and  complicate  identity,  an  important  twist  on  the  self-­‐‑portrait,  but  one  that  
nonetheless  allows  her  work  still  to  be  classified  within  that  genre.  For  this  
reason,  I  emphasize  the  importance  of  Woodman’s  use  of  the  self-­‐‑portrait  as  
structuring  genre.27
But  what  are  the  links  between  self-­‐‑portraiture  and  the  sublime?  Necessarily,  
the   disembodying,   or   self-­‐‑separating,   act   of   making   the   photograph   self-­‐‑
portrait   brings   up   the   sublime   as   that   aesthetic   venture   of   dislocation   par
excellence.   The   body   in   Woodman’s   self-­‐‑portraits   is   positioned   as   a   figure  
standing  for  the  subject-­‐‑who-­‐‑sees,  and  the  subject-­‐‑who-­‐‑sees  in  the Critique of
Judgement  experiences  the  sublime  as  a  dislocating  violence.  The  body-­‐‑prop  
is   femininely   troped   in   Woodman’s   self-­‐‑portraits:   dressed   and   undressed  
to   emphasize   gender,   positioned   in   metonymically   violent   relationship  
with  its  surroundings.  This  double  awareness—the  artist’s  awareness  of  the  
cultural  currency  of  her  body  and  her  awareness  of  her  body  as  materiality—
exemplifies   Woodman’s   understanding   of   violence   in   the   aesthetic,   and   the  
disorienting   stroke   of   the   sublime.   This   violence   is   a   gendered   violence   for  
Kant  insofar  as  he  describes  the  mind  in  the  moment  of  sublime  perception  in  
positionally  gendered  terms,  a  feminized  seeing  subject  violently  treated  by  
the  subreption,  or  violent  seduction,  of  the  (for  Kant)  always  interiorized  event  
of  perception.
My  turn  on  reading  the  problem  of  gender  in  the  Kantian  sublime,  however,  
is  to  look  not  at  how  questions  of  gender  arise  in  our  response  to  Kant  but  at  
how  already  in  Kant’s  work  a  disorientation  of  gendering  shapes  the  aesthetic.  
If   Freeman   argues   that   for   Kant   “the   imagination   is   gendered   as   feminine  
and  [that]  its  sacrifice  functions  rhetorically  to  ensure  the  sublime  moment  …  
scapegoating   a   feminine  figure,”  I  suggest  that  Kant’s  terms  of  imagination  
and  reason  as  they  function  in  aesthetic  perception  are  more  complex,  shi ing  
through  performative  modes  of  gender,  and  importantly  always  within   the  
one  subject-­‐‑who-­‐‑sees.28  Not  two  discrete  entities,  masculine  and  feminine,  

27   In  this,  I  concur  with  Harriet  Riches’  interpretation  of  Woodman  as  so  immersed  
in  the  project  of  photographing  herself  as  to  in  effect  photograph  herself  even  when  
photographing  other  women.  “A  Disappearing  Act:  Francesca  Woodman’s  ‘Portrait  of  
a  Reputation,’”  Oxford  Art  Journal  27,  no.  1  (2004):  99.
28   Freeman,  Feminine  Sublime,  69.
10          

but  rather  modes  of  subjectivity  govern  Kant’s  sublime.  I  ally  Woodman’s  
nearly  decade-­‐‑long  series  of  self-­‐‑portraits  with  this  notion  of  the  sublime  
as  exemplary  of  ontological  instability.

History and Historiography

A er  graduation  from  the  Rhode  Island  School  of  Design,  which  included  an  
important  year  abroad  in  Rome,  Woodman  moved  to  New  York  City,  where  
she  began  the  Temple Project  and  produced  Some Disordered Interior Geometries.  
Despite  her  intense  engagement  with  her  cra ,  Woodman  has  been  recognized  
widely  as  an  artist  only  posthumously,  a  fact  that  places  her  by  the  generically  
feminine  act  of  ceding  control  over  commercial  interaction  with  audience—
what   Virginia   Jackson,   writing   on   Emily   Dickinson,   has   playfully   called   a  
gesture   of   giving   the   audience   one’s   work   en   souffrance.29 This   places   her   in  
a   problematically   feminine   position   resonant   with   the   reputations   of   Emily  
Dickinson  and  Sylvia  Plath,  who  achieved  cult  status  a er  death,  so  that  even  
as  Woodman’s  powerful  work  itself  militates  against  this  particular  passive  
position,  one  notes  the  dissonance  between  Woodman’s  masterful  art  and  the  
powerless  position  from  which  she  must  approach  us:  through  survivors.
Townsend’s   comment   on   Woodman’s   “schoolgirl”   identity   reflects   the  
highly  gendered  position  of  Woodman’s  oeuvre  as  a  posthumously  known  
body   of   work,   a   texte   en   souffrance.   But   this   reality   of   Woodman’s   oeuvre  
as   posthumous   performs   an   emptying   limit:   we   reflect   that,   indeed,   she  
died  young  and  where  do  we  go  from  there?  Instead,  I  explore  Woodman’s  
work  through  the  very  strategies  invoking  gender  and  youth  that  her  work  
puts  in  place.  Using  a  schoolbook  as  an  artist  book,  for  example,  Woodman  
strategizes   femininity   as   the   difficult   terrain   of   forestalled   initiation:   she  
exposes   the   woman   artist   as   always   already   forestalled,   understood   as  
a   permanent   initiate.   For   this   reason,   I   focus   on   Woodman’s   gestures   of  
geometry  as  politics.  That  is,  I  focus  a ention  on  the  photographer’s  masterful  
deployment  of  the  “schoolgirl”  trope  of  geometry,  especially  as  it  resonates  
with   Kant’s   mathematical   sublime,   and   the   theorization   of   geometry   and  
aesthetic  formalization  in  the  Prolegomena.  I  place  emphasis  on  the  way  that  
Woodman   presents   the   aesthetic   as   mathematically   bound,   by   using   the  
student  trope  of  a  geometry  textbook  in  Some Disordered Interior Geometries.  
The   internal   shi   from   her   light   and   playful   use   of   her   student   status—
connoted   by   the   textbook   as   artist   book—to   the   intensity   with   which   she  
engages  questions  of  the  aesthetic  in  that  book  should  alert  us  to  the  necessity  

29   Virginia   Jackson,   Dickinson’s   Misery:   A   Theory   of   Lyric   Reading   (Princeton:  

Princeton  University  Press,  2005),  244.
 :       

of   reading   Woodman   as   an   artist   whose   work   arrives   at   destinations   at  

variance   with   our   expectations   of   gender   and   age,   even   though   (and   also  
because)  she  draws  on  tropes  of  femininity.
Following  her  death,  Woodman’s  parents,  Be y  and  George  Woodman—
artists   highly   respected   in   their   own   right—have   managed   her   estate,  
devotedly   preserving,   protecting,   and   promoting   their   daughter’s   work,  
and   her   posthumous   success   is   striking.30   Critics   respond   to   George   and  
Be y   Woodman’s   presentation   of   Woodman’s   corpus   with   implicitly  
salvific   gestures   of   comparison,   recuperating   Woodman   by   interpreting  
her  work  as  reflective  of  1970s  feminist  concerns,  or  by  aestheticizing  the  
trauma  of  her  suicide,  or  by  comparing  her  self-­‐‑portraits  to  Orthodox  icons,  
artifacts  that  for  the  Eastern  Orthodox  faithful  are  windows  to  the  divinity.  
Indeed,  Phelan  argues  that  the  entire  project  of  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits  
is   to   prepare   the   audience   to   accept   Woodman’s   actual   disappearance,  
her   suicide.   Connecting   Woodman’s   suicide   with   performance   art,  
Phelan   postulates   that   “Perhaps   on   January   19th,   1981,   [Woodman]  
found   a   composition   that   suited   her,   and   she   developed   it   into   an   act   of  
suicide.”   Driving   home   the   point,   Phelan   argues   that   “Woodman’s   use  
of  photography  as  a  way  to  rehearse  her  death  allows  us  to  consider  her  
art  as  an  apprenticeship  in  dying”—a  troubling  claim,  and  unmistakably  
one   that   indicates   the   powerful   relationship   between   the   now-­‐‑always-­‐‑
posthumous  Woodman  and  the  critics  and  curators  who  handle  her  work.31  
“Francesca   Woodman”   the   name   has   become   a   title   under   the   rubric   of  
which  is  organized  exclusively  posthumous  work.
We   see   in   different   critical   responses   the   use   of   Woodman   as   a   figure  
for  each  decade’s  dominant  trope.  Solomon-­‐‑Godeau  takes  her  as  feminist  
icon,   reflecting   the   eighties’   more   monolithic   cultural   feminism.   Phelan  

30   In   2006   Chris   Townsend   brought   out   a   thorough   representation   of   her  

oeuvre,   Francesca   Woodman,   with   Phaidon.  A   selection   of   Woodman’s   photographs  
has  appeared  in  an  edition  published  by  Scalo  in  1998  (Hervé  Chandès,  ed.,  Francesca  
Woodman   [Paris:   Fondation   Cartier   pour   l’Art   Contemporain;   Zurich:   Scalo,   1998]).  
Tribute   has   long   been   given   to   Woodman’s   work   in   solo   exhibitions,   and   her  
photography  has  been  represented  in  group  exhibitions  in  museums  nationwide  and  
internationally.  A  selective  list  of  museums  and  galleries  that  have  hosted  Francesca  
Woodman  solo  exhibitions  includes  Espacio  AV  and  SMS  Contemporanea  in  Siena,  
Italy,  2009;  Marian  Goodman  Gallery,  2004;  Cornell  University  Museum  of  Art,  2003;  
Palazzo  delle  Esposizioni,  Rome,  2000;  Fondation  Cartier  pour  l’Art  Contemporain,  
Paris,  1998;  The  Photographers  Gallery,  London,  1999;  Recontres  Internationales  de  
la   Photographies,  Arles,   1998;   Galleria   Civica,   Modena,   Italy,   1996;   DAAD   Galerie,  
Berlin,  Germany,  1993;  Institute  of  Contemporary  Art,  Philadelphia,  1990;  and  Hunter  
College  Art  Gallery,  New  York,  1986.  Woodman’s  photographs  currently  are  handled  
by  the  prestigious  Marian  Goodman  Gallery,  New  York  City.
31   Phelan,  “Francesca  Woodman’s  Photography,”  999,  1002.
12          

places   Woodman   in   terms   of   nineties   discourse   of   trauma   theory,   while  

Townsend  reads  her  as  the  “schoolgirl”  privileged  in  turn-­‐‑of-­‐‑the-­‐‑century  
fascination  with  the  femme-­‐‑enfant,  the  renaissance  of  interest  in  surrealism.  
Mieke   Bal   gracefully   and   movingly   writes   on   Woodman   as   a   Proustian  
figure,  evoking  our  early-­‐‑twenty-­‐‑first-­‐‑century  awareness  of  video  as  a  site  
of   erosion,   a   space   where   identity   is   formally   “sca ered.”32   In   trying   to  
fit  Woodman  under  the  rubric  of  contemporary  discourse,  a  gesture  that  
cannot  help  but  reveal  most  of  all  the  shi ing  of  critical  thought  through  
time,   these   critics   implicitly   respond   to   Francesca   Woodman’s   originary  
trope   of   photographing   almost   exclusively   herself:   for   the   performance  
of   the   impossibility   of   engaging   a   stable   identity   of   the   self   is   a   central  
tenet   of   Woodman’s   work.   Yet   Woodman   commands   the   photograph   not  
to  destabilize  identity  but  rather  for  its  sheer  usefulness  as  a  tool  to  reveal  
identity’s  fractionary  quality.
In   responding   to   her   work   with   concerns   of   aesthetics,   perhaps   I   am  
reflecting   my   own   temporal   moment   and   frame,   and   even   biography,  
reflecting  a  mistrust  of  the  bourgeois  contours  of  commemoration.  I  am  also  
expressing  an  interest  voiced  by  Woodman  when  she  wrote  that  the  task  of  
her  photographs  was  to  allow  her  to  locate  “where  I  fit  in  this  odd  geometry  
of  time.”33  Her  interest  is  not  in  self-­‐‑exploration,  nor  self-­‐‑commemoration,  but  
rather  in  the  inevitability  of  the  immersion  of  the  self  in  culture:  time  crossing  
and  crossed  by  the  body,  zeitgeist  most  legible  in  hindsight.
The  question  of  how  to  understand  Woodman’s  relationship  to  inheritance,  
to   the   canon,   and   to   artistic   lineage   is   taken   up   by   Carol   Armstrong,   who  
like  Townsend  argues  that  Woodman  is  best  understood  as  a  girl  interrupted,  
and  who  strongly  emphasizes  Woodman’s  “marginality”  and  “minorness.”34  
However,   Armstrong   may   not   sufficiently   take   into   account   Woodman’s  
medium  as  itself  participatory  in  tropes  of  marginality,  a  bastard  product  of  
science   and   art’s   liaison.   Photography   descends   not   only   from   the   pictorial  
tradition  but  also  from  philosophies  of  perception,  conceptualizations  of  the  
gaze  that  valorize  the  separation  of  gaze  and  body,  ideas  that  in  part  generated  
the   camera’s   creation.   Photography   is   placed   at   the   margins   through   this  
inheritance—maybe   the   margins   of   art,   but   more   importantly   the   margins  
of   conceptualizations   of   seeing.   The   camera   haunts   theorizations   of   seeing.  

32   Mieke  Bal,  “Marcel  and  Me:  Woodman  through  Proust,”  in  Francesca  Woodman  
Retrospective,  ed.  Isabel  Tejeda  (Murcia,  Spain:  Espacio  AV,  2009),  114–41.
33   Francesca   Woodman,   Francesca   Woodman:   Photographic   Work,   April   9–June   8,  
1986,  ed.  Abigail  Solomon-­‐‑Godeau,  Ann  Gabhart,  and  Rosalind  Woodman  (Wellesley,  
MA:  Wellesley  College  Museum,  1986),  238.
34   Carol  Armstrong,  “Francesca  Woodman:  A  Ghost  in  the  House  of  the  ‘Woman  
Artist,’”   in   Women   Artists   at   the   Millennium,   ed.   Carol   Armstrong   and   Catherine   de  
Zegher (Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press,  2006),  347–48.
 :       13

I   point   out   that   Woodman   herself   is   intensely   aware   of   the   lineage   of   her  
medium,  its  minorness,  and  that  playing  through  the  terms  of  this  lineage  in  
the  margins  is  central  to  her  project.
Claiming   not   to   read   Woodman   through   the   lens   of   her   suicide,  
Armstrong   nonetheless   posits   Woodman   as   a   feminine   ghost:   indeed,   the  
title  of  Armstrong’s  piece,  “Francesca  Woodman:  A  Ghost  in  the  House  of  
the   ‘Woman   Artist,’”   highlights   Woodman’s   status   as   a   suicide,   a   ghost.  
But   Woodman   appears   in   her   photographs   as   a   ghost   only   if   we   read   the  
photographs   according   to   their   reception   history—the   historical   fact   of  
their  being  brought  before  audience  by  her  survivors.  O en  read  as  suicidal  
emblems,   her   characteristic   use   of   blur   and   self-­‐‑violating   cropping   in   fact  
are   methods   that   Woodman   deploys   to   query   geometry’s   relationship   to  
vision  and  must  be  read  for  that  formal  gesture.  Again,  I  suggest  a  return  
to   the   terms   of   placement   that   Woodman’s   work,   not   her   history,   offers:  
the  photographs  as  object-­‐‑images  that  allow  her  to  negotiate  a  fit  between  
herself  and  the  “odd  geometry  of  time”  even  as  they  also  slip  through  stable,  
se led  schema.  This  resistance  to  critical  schema  and  strategies  stems  from  
Woodman’s  almost  uncanny  fusion  with  her  medium.  It  is  not  she  who  is  
marginal  but  photography  that  she  understands  as  haunting,  and  deploys  
to  haunt  the  margins  of  aesthetics.
The   powerful,   mostly   female   critics   who   establish   Woodman’s   feminist  
credentials   surprisingly   fit   with   male   critics   such   as   Chris   Townsend,  
and   interpret   Woodman   with   gestures   of   implicit   redemption,   at   once  
emphasizing   Woodman’s   artistic   power   and   also   implying   that   her   status  
is  that  of  the  lost  girl—one  in  need  of  absolution.  But  this  approach  points  
to  an  under-­‐‑theorization  of  the  prodigy’s  art,  displacing  the  work,  and  risks  
leaving   aside   consideration  of  Woodman’s  extraordinary  early  steeping  in  
the  aesthetic  by  dint  of  growing  up  in  a  household  of  artists.35  Here,  I  must  
take  issue  with  reception  history  theories  and  instead  suggest  that  critical  
and   cultural   discomfort   with   the   idea   of   a   female   prodigy   is   the   engine  
that   too   o en   drives   responses   to   Woodman’s   art.   Consider,   for   example,  
how   Townsend’s   criticism   endeavors   to   place   Woodman   in   the   position  
of   unwi ing,   perhaps   even   lucky,   producer   of   powerful   images.   Such   an  

35   Sloan  Rankin  and  Benjamin  Buchloh  both  discuss  Woodman’s  background  as  
the  very  well-­‐‑educated  daughter  of  two  artists,  interpreting  her  early  indoctrination  
into  the  field.  See  Rankin,  “Peach  Mumble—Ideas  Cooking,”  Francesca  Woodman,  ed.  
Hervé   Chandès   (Paris:   Fondation   Cartier   pour   l’Art   Contemporain;   Zurich:   Scalo,  
1998),   33–37,   and   Buchloh,   “Francesca   Woodman:   Performing   the   Photograph,  
Staging   the   Subject,”   in   Francesca   Woodman:   Photographs,   1975–1980   (New   York:  
Marian  Goodman  Gallery,  2004),  41–50.  Likewise,  Be y  Woodman,  in  Be y  Woodman:  
Thinking  Out  Loud,  emphasizes  her  lifelong  work  of  studying  art:  visiting  museums  
and   traveling   as   education,   an   education   in   which   the   young   Francesca   Woodman  
was  included  (dir.  Charles  Woodman,  Charles  Woodman  Video,  1991).
14          

approach  ignores  the  ways  that  Woodman,  despite  her  youth,  uses  her  self-­‐‑
portrait   photographs   to   contend   with   questions   of   aesthetic   inheritance.  
Betsy  Berne  alludes  specifically  to  this  aspect  of  Woodman’s  art  when  she  
argues  that  Woodman’s  feminism  inheres  in  the  seriousness  with  which  she  
took  her  own  work.36
Rather  than  interpret  the  self-­‐‑portraits,  then,  as  ruminating  aspects  of  true  
identity,   or   even   self-­‐‑destruction   as   one   valence   of   identity,   I   focus   on   how  
Woodman  uses  the  gaze  directed  toward  the  figure  of  the  self  as  metaphor  
for  the  problem  of  aesthetic  formalization.  Woodman’s  gaze  turned  on  herself  
structures  a  mise en abyme  of  gazing,  a  gesture  that  disrupts  in  turn  each  frame  
of  reference  by  which  we  interpret  her  self-­‐‑portrait  photographs.

Sublimes

Perhaps   eager   to   dispel   masculinist   images,   such   as   those   put   forward   by  

Phillippe  Sollers  and  Chris  Townsend  of  Woodman  as  a  sorceress  or  schoolgirl,  
Peggy   Phelan   and   Harriet   Riches   theorize   Woodman’s   self-­‐‑portraits   as   all  
about  disappearance,  as  if  they  wished  to  bodily  remove  Woodman  from  the  
sightline  of  phallocentric  misprisons.37  It  is  from  Phelan’s  provocative  point  of  
arguing  that  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits  are  taken  to  prepare  us,  as  audience,  
for   her   eventual   suicide   that   I   depart—depart   from   it   both   in   the   sense   of  
deploying  Phelan’s  insight  as  an  important  basis  for  the  study  of  Woodman’s  
photographs   and   also   in   the   sense   of   questioning   Phelan’s   thesis   of   the  
death-­‐‑bound  thematic  of  Woodman’s  art.  Phelan’s  argument  turns  on  Cathy  
Caruth’s  theorization  of  traumatic  repetition.38  She  suggests  that  Woodman,  
in  her  self-­‐‑portraits,  repetitively  stages  the  moment  of  her  disappearance,  as  if  
posthumous  renown  proleptically  tugged  at  Francesca  Woodman  while  alive.  
Subverting  claims  to  artistic  accomplishment,  Phelan  states  that  Woodman’s  
“work   invites   us,   with   immense   fragility   and   precision,   to   allow   her   death  
to   survive   her   art,   rather   than   the   other   way   around.”39   I   depart   from   this  

36   Betsy  Berne,  “To  Tell  the  Truth,”  foreword  to  Francesca  Woodman:  Photographs,  
1975–1980  (New  York:  Marian  Goodman  Gallery,  2004),  5.
37   Phillippe  Sollers’s  essay  on  Woodman,  “The  Sorceress”  (in  Francesca  Woodman,  
ed.  Hervé  Chandès  [Paris:  Fondation  Cartier  pour  l’Art  Contemporain;  Zurich:  Scalo,  
1998],  9–13)  will  be  discussed  later  in  this  book;  Townsend’s  monograph  has  already  
been  mentioned.
38   In   Unclaimed   Experience:   Trauma,   Narrative,   and   History,   Caruth   argues   for  
necessary   amnesia   surrounding   traumatic   experiences   and   also   argues   that   the  
experiences  return  as  traumatic  repetition  (Baltimore:  Johns  Hopkins  University  Press,  
1996,  59,  132n).
39   Phelan,  “Francesca  Woodman’s  Photography,”  999.
 :       

theorization  because  if  Phelan  argues  that  suicidal  ideation  is  performed  in  
Woodman’s  photographs  Phelan  has  first  to  assume  a  transparent  legibility  
for  suicide  which  in  fact  can  only  be  read  conditionally.  Turning  from  critical  
fantasies   of   bodily   recuperation,   then,   I   seek   the   legibility   of   Woodman’s  
pictures  in  other  registers.
Phelan’s   valorization   of   Woodman’s   work   as   articulating   “fragility”  
nevertheless   is   useful   in   terms   of   its   evocation   of   the   fragility   of   the  
medium,   the   photograph   as   transient   memento.   The   disappearance  
evoked   by   Woodman’s   manipulation   of   shu er   speed   to   create   images  
of   herself   as   a   blurred   figure,   or   her   use   of   square   format   and   cropping  
to  display  images  of  herself  without  a  head,  or  her  placing  herself  at  the  
edge   of   the   photograph’s   frame,   is   not   the   disappearance   of   Woodman’s  
self   but   a   shi ing   of   the   mechanism   of   the frame itself,   and   a   shi ing   of  
the   mechanism   of   audience   as   the   implied   limit   of   the   photograph.  
Her   engagement   is   with   the   limits   of   seeing:   a   kind   of   seeing   intensely  
related   to   Kant’s   notion   of   vorstellen,   or   imagination   as   the   placement   of  
the   image   violently   into   the   gaze.40   For   Kant’s   sublime   encodes   violence  
and   loss,   indeed,   a   “violence   that   is   wrought   on   the   subject   through   the  
imagination”   because   the   image   places   itself   into   the   gaze   in   a   manner  
that   complicates   or   reverses   the   relationship   of   the   gaze   (as   agency)   to  
the  gazed  upon  (as  object).  Kant’s  use  of  vorstellen  radically  describes  the  
gazed   upon   as   an   object   that   acts,   that   emplaces   itself   into   the   capacity  
of  the  gaze.41  Playing  through  tropes  of  the  powerful  object  that  in  some  
sense  throws  or  disturbs  the  gaze,  Woodman’s  work  in  its  fierce  contentions  
with   the   aesthetic   reads   as   anything   but   “fragile”   precisely   insofar   as   it  
acts   through   its   awareness   of   photography,   the   medium,   as   fragile.   The  
Temple Project,   for   example,   articulates   the   dissonance   between   classical  
marble   caryatids   and   the   photograph-­‐‑caryatids   with   which   Woodman  
was   building   her   temple.   The   drama   of   the   Temple Project   inheres   in   this  
highlighting   of   the   difference   between   marble   and   film,   stability   and  
fragility.
Are  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits,  with  their  characteristic  blur  and  decentering,  
about  formlessness,  about  the  loss  of  self  as  the  loss  of  form,  or  is  something  

40   I   am   using   the   term   vorstellen—representation—untranslated   because   I   do  

not   want   to   lose   the   doubleness   of   the   term   in   the   German,   the   sense   of   that   which  
places  itself.  My  reading  of  Kant’s  use  of  vorstellen  is  influenced  by  Jonathan  Loesberg’s  
revision  of  Kantian  aesthetics’  usefulness  in  postmodernity.  As  Loesberg  writes,  “The  
aesthetics  that  comes  out  of  Kant  will  always  depend  both  on  an  essentialism  and  on  
its  own  undoing  of  that  essentialism,  regardless  of  the  essentialism  or  the  skepticism  
of  the  philosopher,  and  it  is  precisely  that  deconstructive  balance  that  will  enable  the  
postmodern  employment  of  it.”  Return  to  Aesthetics,  125.
41   Kant,  Critique,  89.
16          

more  complex  and  difficult  tracked  in  these  images?42 Woodman’s  submi ing  
herself   to   the   process   of   photographic   self-­‐‑portraiture   reflects   less   a  
narcissistic  obsession,  or  its  obverse  wish  to  disappear,  as  rather  a  fascination  
with   the   violating—fla ening—gaze   of   the   photograph,   and   with   blur   as  
a   way   of   bringing   dimension   into   the   flat   image.  As   a   stroke   of   integrity,  
she  characteristically  submits  her  own  body  to  the  experimentation  of  that  
violence.  Her  negatives  destabilize  the  privileged  Kantian  notion  of  negative  
pleasure.  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits,  uninterested  in  her  own  person,  use  the  
body   of   the   young   woman   photographer   as   a   prop   to   query   the   violence  
inherent  in  aesthetic  formalization,  traditional  readings  of  the  relationship  
between   femininity   and   formlessness   radicalized   by   Woodman’s   self-­‐‑
portraits. Like  Kant’s  notion  of  vorstellen  as  that  which  forcibly  re-­‐‑presents  
in   the   imagination   what   is   at   once   still   sensuous   and   definitionally   not  
embodied,  Woodman  evokes  an  uncanny  deferral  of  materiality  in  the  act  
of  seeing  that  is  placed  in  the  photograph.  She  emphatically  a ends  to  the  
photograph  as  medium,  playing  with  its  singular  flatness  as  disembodying  
power   while   emphasizing   her   body,   deploying   the   female   nude   with   all  
its   semiotic   freight.  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits  invoke  a  fall  into  perception  
as   a   loss   of   intact   boundaries,   and   I   connect   this   vertigo   of   perception,   a  
hinge  between  the  sensuous  and  the  rational,  with  the  core  difficulty  of  the  
Kantian  sublime.
Approaching   Woodman’s   work   in   terms   of   the   sublime   as   risk  
(encompassing   threat   as   a   valence   of   fragility),   I’m   aware   that   there   are  
many   sublimes:   Burke’s   sublime,   Hegel’s   sublime,   Herder’s   sublime,   the  
postmodern  sublime,  Lyotard’s  seminal  interpretation  of  Kant’s  sublime,  and  
Yaeger’s  female  sublime,  to  name  a  few.  While  I  return  o en  to  Freeman’s  
feminine  sublime  and  to  Vijay  Mishra’s  gothic  sublime,  in  focusing  on  Kant’s  
Critique of Judgement   I   am   acknowledging,   to   put   it   mildly,   the   influential  
pull  of  the  philosopher’s  work  on  the  topic.  But,  as  I  will  show,  the  striking  
proximity   of   concerns   that   occur   between   Kant’s   sublime   and   Woodman’s  
self-­‐‑portraits   merits   articulation.   Woodman’s   emphasis   on   geometry,  
exemplified  in  her  use  of  an  Italian  geometry  textbook  as  the  template  for  
Some Disordered Interior Geometries,   and   reflected   in   recurrent   structuring  
motifs   of   her   photographs,   manifests   as   commentary   on   key   terms   of   the  
Kantian  sublime  and  also  resonates  with  Kant’s  discussion  of  geometry  in  
the  Prolegomena.  A  dialogue  opens  between  Woodman’s  interrogation  of  the  
aesthetic   as   an   “interior   geometry”   and   Kant’s   architectonic   imagination  
theorizing  the  sublime.  States  Kant,  “The  sublime  is  that,  the  mere  capacity  

42   For  a  discussion  of  gender  and  focus,  see  Lindsay  Smith,  The  Politics  of  Focus:  
Women,   Children,   and   Nineteenth-­‐‑Century   Photography   (Manchester,   UK:   Manchester  
University  Press,  1998).
 :       17

of  thinking  which  evidences  a  faculty  of  mind  transcending  every  standard  

of  sense.”43  That  is,  the  sublime  at  once  forefronts  and  destroys  the  frame,  a  
gesture  on  which  Woodman’s  self-­‐‑portraits  remark.  Woodman’s  exploration  
of  the  meaning  and  work  of  the  frame  pivots  on  this  boundary  condition  of  
the  aesthetic.
Vijay  Mishra,  in  The Gothic Sublime,  suggests,  “The  sublime  is  that  which  
cannot   be   bordered,   defined,   delimited.”44   Woodman’s   images   work   by  
disarticulating   and   dislocating   the   preeminence   of   the   frame   implicit  
in   the   photograph,   a   gesture   strongly   resonant   with   Derrida’s   reading   of  
Kant’s  sublime  as  that  which  troubles  the  frame:  “What  has  produced  and  
manipulated  the  frame  puts  everything  to  work  in  order  to  efface  the  frame  
effect.”45   For   Derrida,   the   sublime   is this contestation   of   the   work   of   the  
frame.   Not   only,   as   Townsend   notes,   do   Woodman’s   photographs   present  
an  obsession  with  the  problem  of  space,  and  space’s  function  as  frame,  but  
this  obsession  is  keyed  into  Kant’s  theorization  of  the  gaze  in  the  sublime  as  
an  event  violently  displaced  from  the  spatial  and  the  temporal.  Woodman’s  
photographs   exemplify   a   risky   and   troubled   relationship   to   space,   an  
exploration  that  pressures  boundaries.
Commenting   on   the   uncanny   swerve   of   photographic   space   in   her  
pictures,   Woodman’s   use   of   the   serial   plays   across   the   spatial   register.  
Phelan   interprets   the   serial   gesture   of   Woodman’s   work,   its   quality   of  
repetition,   as   pos raumatic,   while   Krauss   argues   it   derives   from   origins  
as   student   exercises   and   Townsend   links   it   to   a   tradition   in   American  
photography  passed  down  through  Aaron  Siskind.  I  suggest,  though,  that  
Woodman’s   trope   of   repetition   in   stretching   space   across   the   boundaries  
of   individual   frames   taps   the   Kantian   sublime   as   mathematical   sublime.  
Woodman’s   entire   oeuvre—interpretable   as   a   nearly   decade-­‐‑long   series   of  
self-­‐‑portraits—inclines   toward   the   status   of   that   which   is   repeated   until  
it   becomes   massive,   the   massive   a   central   concept   of   Kant’s   mathematical  
sublime.  Woodman’s  nearly  ceaseless  return  to  the  self-­‐‑portrait,  a  repetition  
that   makes   a   series   great   “beyond   every   standard   of   sense,”   takes   on   the  
terms  of  the  sublime  by  invoking  magnitude,  both  through  sheer  repetition  
and   by   invoking   the   vulnerable,   even   violated,   position   of   the   observing  
subject  in  a  lifelong  series  of  self-­‐‑portraits  whose  boundaries  are  effectively  
eroded   by   juxtaposition   against   each   other.46   For,   of   series,   Kant   argues,  

43   Kant,  Critique,  81.

44   Vijay  Mishra,  The Gothic Sublime  (Albany:  State  University  of  New  York  Press,  
1994),  41.
45   Derrida,  Truth in Painting,  73.
46   Kant,  Critique,  79.  Argues  Kant,  “The  Sublime  is  that  in  comparison  with  which  
all  else  is  small”  (80).
          

“The  …  series  is  a  condition  of  inner  sense  and  of  an  intuition  in  a  subjective  
movement   of   the   imagination   by   which   it   does   violence   to   inner   sense.”47  
Woodman’s   repetitive   recourse   to   the   self-­‐‑portrait   gesture,   legible   as   a  
lifelong  series  of  self-­‐‑portraits,  goes  so  far  beyond  student  exercises  that  it  
asks  to  be  interpreted  beyond  such  frames  of  reference.  As  if  nothing  might  
have  truncated  the  continuation  of  the  self-­‐‑portraits,  Woodman’s  repetition  
creates  a  series  of  self-­‐‑portraits  so  extensive  as  to  form  together  a  massive  
text.   Importantly,   Woodman’s   implicit   invocation   of   the   massive   work   of  
art—her   massive,   lifelong   series   of   self-­‐‑portraits—militates   powerfully  
against  notions  of  woman’s  art  as  miniature  and  delicate.  The  volume  that  
she  achieves  by  returning  day  a er  day,  year  a er  year,  to  the  act  of  the  self-­‐‑
portrait,  even  as  it  opens  her  to  charges  of  feminine  vanitas,  shakes  gendered  
norms.   Woodman’s   oeuvre   insists   on   the   massive,   a   massive   continuous  
work  whose  very  over-­‐‑sized  force  militates  against  coding  the  photographs  
as  transparent  feminine  meditations  on  beauty.

S  M

As   I   have   noted,   Kant’s   sublime’s   relationship   to   substance   and   space   is  

troubled.   For   Kant,   the   sublime   occurs   only   in   the   mind   of   the   beholder  
and  cannot  adhere  to  a  physical  object.  Likewise,  the  sublime  resists  and  
troubles   form,   troubles   structure   and   materiality.   Photography’s   history  
suggests   a   relationship   to   the   sublime,   insofar   as   they   share   troubled  
concepts  of  materiality.  Interpreted  by  Henry  Fox  Talbot  as  “fairy  pictures”  
because  of  the  ephemerality  of  his  early  methods  of  making  pictures  from  
light,  the  photograph  yet  retains  the  memory  of  the  risk  of  ephemerality,  
the  back-­‐‑story  of  impermanence.48  Its  hybrid  status  as  scientific  artifact  and  
stepchild  of  the  pictorial  tradition  places  the  photograph  almost  between  
ma er   and   form,   between   object   and   evanescence.   While   we   speak   of   a  
photograph’s  composition  and  formal  balance,  the  photograph  also  always  
contains  the  threat  of  raveling,  of  decomposing  back  into  formless  light.  The  
photograph  tests  Kant’s  sublime  configuration  of  what  erupts  and  disrupts  
the  boundaries  of  form.  Woodman’s  focus  on  the  self-­‐‑portrait  as  a  site  of  
blur   works   so   powerfully   because   she   invokes   photography’s   history   as  
“fairy  picture,”  or  ephemerality  reified,  and  also  enunciates  its  resistance  

47   Ibid.,  89.
48   Writes  Talbot,  “This  method  was  to  take  a  camera  obscura  and  to  throw  the  
image   of   the   objects   on   a   piece   of   paper   in   its   focus—fairy   pictures,   creations   of   a  
moment,   and   destined   as   rapidly   to   fade   away.”   Quoted   in   Beaumont   Newhall, The
History  of  Photography:  From  1893  to  the  Present,  5th  ed.  (New  York:  Museum  of  Modern  
Art,  1994),  19.
 :       

to   vanishing,   the   form   that   teeters   on   the   verge   of   the   formlessness   of  

light.
Is   the   photograph   indeed   an   object,   or   a   record   of   an   object?   Of   course,  
it  has  physicality  of  its  own,  but  this  physicality  seems  always  to  be  less  or  
more  than  the  sum  of  its  parts.  That  is,  the  history,  trace,  of  the  physical  that  
the   photograph   presents,   along   with   the   dissolution   of   the   physical   that   its  
status  as  light-­‐‑graph  also  presents,  focuses  a  crux  of  form  and  formlessness  
that  echoes  Kant’s  concern  with  how  the  sublime  connects  to  the  object—this  
very   troubled   connection.   My   suggestion   is   that   Woodman’s   self-­‐‑portraits,  
by   enacting   a   decentering   of   the   prop   of   subjectivity,   interact   with   Kant’s  
concern   about   vision’s   threatened   and   threatening   power   (which   contains  
the  problem  of  form  and  formlessness),  the  object’s  intermediary  status  in  the  
sublime.   Woodman’s   approach   to   visually   decentering   the   subject   interacts  
with  Kant’s  theorization  of  the  struggles  surrounding  formlessness  and  stasis  
in  the  aesthetic.
In  the  photograph  that  Townsend  uses  for  the  jacket  of  Francesca  Woodman,  
for   example,   we   see   Woodman’s   “shadow”   made   explicit   in   white   powder  
(Untitled, Providence,  RI,  1976;  fig.  1).  Beneath  the  figure  of  a  nude  Woodman  
si ing  in  a  chair,  a  floor  covered  with  white  powder  retains  the  dark  imprint  
of  her  body.  Apparently,  Woodman  had  lain  down  in  the  powder  and  made  a  
kind  of  nude  “snow  angel”  in  it  and  then  go en  up  to  sit  in  the  chair  for  the  
slant  self-­‐‑portrait  to  be  snapped.  Although  the  self-­‐‑portrait  cuts  off  her  head,  
we  are  u erly  aware  of  her  gaze  in  this  image.  Her  gaze  is  the  subject  of  the  
photograph,  its  truncation  precisely  the  point.  For  irresistibly,  we  “see”  her  
looking  down  at  her  own  dislocated  shadow,  her  own  negative.
This   dislocation   of   flesh   from   shadow,   of   form   from   form’s   echo,   is  
precisely  the  twist  that  photography  offers,  and  Woodman’s  uncanny  self-­‐‑
portrait  of  herself  as  a  negative  plays  through  its  terms  with  masterful  wit.  
Indeed,   Woodman   makes   the   topic   of   many   of   her   self-­‐‑portraits   the   way  
that  form  is  lost  and  gained  in  the  photograph—which  is  both  an  object  and  
not  an  object.  Woodman  presents  an  ingenious  grasp  of  her  medium’s  risk,  
and   this   risk   correlates   with   the   threat   of   dissolution   that   Kant’s   sublime  
presents.
My   contention   in   the   chapters   that   follow   is   that   Woodman’s   theory-­‐‑
producing  photographs  work  figurally  as  Lyotard  intends,  through  terms  of  
figuration  that  trouble  and  alter  the  status  quo.  The  figures  in  her  photographs  
interpret   and   interrupt   ideology   and   charge   and   change   the   aesthetic.  
Woodman  interrogates  the  “subjective  movement  of  the  imagination  by  which  
it  does  violence  to  inner  sense,”  shi ing  her  body  as  a  figure  that  represents  
the  imagination  in  photographs  staking  their  claim  as  interior  geometries.49

49   Kant,  Critique,  89.

20          

S  P

Developing   from   Benjamin   Buchloh’s   argument   that   Woodman   is   u erly  

concerned   with   the   process   of   photography,   the   physical   immersion   that  
produces   the   framed   image,   I   approach   Woodman’s   engagement   with  
geometry.50   Engaging   and   troubling   the   architectonic,   the   flat   plane   of   the  
photograph   plays   through   the   process   of   losing   and   claiming   space   as  
it   is   framed.   A   tapping   of   the   sublime   as   interior,   but   interior   complexly  
adumbrated  in  an  always  flat  image,  marks  Woodman’s  interaction  with  the  
gendering   of   the   aesthetic.   For   the   history   of   femininity   as   interiority   and  
excess,  analyzed  by  Judith  Butler  in  her  reinterpretation  of  the  Platonic  chora  
in  Bodies  that  Ma er,  points  to  an  ambiguous  cultural  space,  at  once  originary  
and  abject,  threatening  because  of  the  quality  of  excess  that  also  defines  the  
sublime.  While  Butler  suggests  that  a  radical  disassociation  of  the  feminine  
and  interiority  is  necessary  to  undo  the  denigrating  link  between  femininity  
and   formless   ma er,   there   are   other   ways   to   interpret   the   chora.   Indeed,  
I   will   suggest   that   Plato’s   chora   resurfaces   or   echoes   in   Kant’s   sublime.  
One   of   the   tasks   of   this   book,   then,   is   to   return   to   the   vexed   relationship  
between   form   and   origination,   in   which   is   embedded   the   problem   of   the  
idea  of  the  feminine  as  that  which  produces  form  but  lacks  form  itself.  The  
relationship   between   form   and   femininity   is   pressured   and   thrown   into  
relief  in  Woodman’s  sublime.  Woodman’s  work  performs  an  extraordinary  
intervention   into   the   terms   of   the   sublime,   a   gesture   which   the   following  
chapters  will  chart.  Reading  Woodman  as  an  artist  engaged  in  the  discourse  
of   aesthetics,   a   discourse   bound   up   with   metaphors   of   photography   and  
gender,  and  interpreting  Woodman  as  an  artist  who  interrogates  and  revises  
this  discourse,  I  hope  to  offer  a  way  to  widen  the  scope  of  our  critical  gaze  
on  her  remarkable  photographs.

50   Buchloh,  “Francesca  Woodman,”  46.

51   Judith   Butler,   Bodies   That   Ma er:   On   the   Discursive   Limits   of   “Sex”   (London:  
Routledge,  1993).