The photographs on display by New Zealand artist Alexis Hunter (1948–2014), address gender politics, sexuality, and power dynamics.
Hunter originally trained as a painter, but switched to photography shortly after she moved to London in 1972: ‘I felt very strongly about feminism and photography better expressed my political ideals.’
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Alexis Hunter, Untitled. From the Object Series, 1974-75. Black and white photograph, gelatin silver print. Purchased 2008 (O.031448).
‘Depersonalised’ is how Alexis Hunter described the models in Untitled. From the Object Series. ‘They become a body not a person, and then just an image not an image of a person.’
Viewers in the 1970s were surprised to discover that The Object Series was by a woman artist. Photographers were then assumed to be men, and sexualised images were usually of women. Hunter observed that her photographs were consequently seen as ‘more sexy – and strangely colder’.
These works toured in 2007 as part of WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, a major international exhibition of feminist art. Today, Hunter’s works, and other feminist art of the 1970s, are again receiving attention.
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Alexis Hunter, Untitled. From the Object Series, 1974-75. Black and white photograph, gelatin silver print. Purchased 2008 (O.031444).
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Alexis Hunter, The model’s revenge no.1, 1974. Black and white photograph, gelatin silver print. Purchased 2016. Te Papa (O.044640)
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Alexis Hunter, Approach to fear III: Taboo - demystify, 1976. Black and white photograph, gelatin silver print. Purchased 2008. Te Papa (O.031419/A-T to T-T)
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Alexis Hunter, Approach to fear XIX: Voyeurism - exposure, 1978. Black and white photograph, gelatin silver print. Purchased 2016. Te Papa (O.044641/A-T to T-T)
