Art lover Robert Flynn Johnson calls himself a curator, a distinguished label that means someone likes stuff and likes to differentiate this stuff from that stuff. He’s a guy who gets to the flea market early in the morning, and he’s particularly fascinated by old photographs. In addition to scholarly works about individual artists, he has published several books about the photographic treasures he’s unearthed.
At a postcard show in Concord a few years ago, he bought two photos — professionally taken, crisply focused — of prostitutes. They were part of a collection, and eventually, Johnson contacted the seller and, and after much back and forth, bought a whole set of the photos.
They were taken in 1892 at a brothel in Reading, Penn., by photographer William Goldman. As soon as he realized the size of the collection, said Johnson at the opening of a show of the photos at the Serge Sorokko Gallery (through Dec. 9), “I knew somewhere somehow there would be a book.” “Working Girls: An American Brothel, circa 1892” is newly published by Glitterati Editions. In addition to Johnson describing his acquisition of the photos, and the urban milieu in which they were taken, the book has a foreword by neo-burlesque star Dita Von Teese; a preface by feminist historian Ruth Rosen; and an essay that focuses on Gilded Age lingerie, by Phoenix Art Museum fashion design curator Dennita Sewell.
But for all that scholarly power, the pleasure is looking at the pictures, the women seemingly relaxed in front of the camera. With a few exceptions, Goldman’s subjects aren’t playing peekaboo, they’re not flirting behind fans, and no one has ever heard of any body part that’s artfully waxed. They’re just there, comfortable in every size and shape; no one’s had a boob job, no one’s sucking her stomach in.
At the opening of the exhibition, I watched the crowed peering at the photos, complete with imperfections, and it seemed to me that this peep show pleased the sisters even more than the men.
The theme, she said, was “appropriation,” and artist, performer and MacArthur fellow Carrie Mae Weems wowed the audience by singing a bit (along with a video of Aretha Franklin), dancing and showing other videos in her Bransten Lecture at the de Young Museum on Nov. 9.
Setting out afterward from the de Young to the Prospect restaurant for dinner hosted by the museum, she realized, upon approaching the machine to pay for her parking ticket, that she’d left her wallet at the Laurel Inn, where she’d been staying. There was a line of people waiting to pay behind her, and a man who’d been at the museum for its Friday Nights at the de Young party — not for the lecture — stepped up and paid for her.
PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING
“I have the talent. I just have to monetize it.”
Woman to friend, overheard over breakfast at Alexis Baking Co. in Napa by Joe Pramuk
Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, 415-777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik
