Susan Meiselas: Carnival Strippers Revisited by Susan Meiselas

Susan Meiselas: Carnival Strippers Revisited by Susan Meiselas

This is the new and expanded edition of Susan Meiselas' 1976 book Carnival Strippers, arguably one of the most important photographic projects of the second half of the twentieth century.

From 1972 to 1975, Meiselas spent her summers photographing women who performed striptease for small-town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. As she followed the shows from town to town, she captured the dancers on stage and off, their public performances as well as private lives, creating a portrait both documentary and empathetic: "The recognition of this world is not the invention of it. I wanted to present an account of the girl show that portrayed what I saw and revealed how the people involved felt about what they were doing." Meiselas also taped candid interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers and paying customers, which form a crucial part of the book.

Meiselas' frank description of these women brought a hidden world to public attention, and explored the complex role the carnival played in their lives: mobility, money and liberation, but also undeniable objectification and exploitation. Produced during the early years of the women's movement, Carnival Strippers reflects the struggle for identity and self-esteem that characterized a complex era of change. Featuring largely unpublished additional photos, contact sheets and letters in its Making of Volume, Carnival Strippers Revisited gives new depth to Meiselas' influential vision.

Any book allows its reader to distance himself. The curtain closing on the girl show stage is replaced by the page turning over. Like the show, the book represents coexistent aspects of a phenomenon, one which horrifies, one which honors. If the viewer is appalled by what follows, that reaction is not so different from the alienation of those who participate in the shows. - Susan Meiselas, 1976

Felix Hoffmann (1911-1975) was born in Aarau, Switzerland. He was an illustrator and also painted on glass. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, Germany, and the School of Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin. He illustrated eighty-six books. In 1957 Hoffmann was awarded the Swiss Children's Book Prize for his life's work. He also appeared on the Honors list for the Hans Christian Andersen Award several times, and in 1972 he was short-listed for the same award for his life's work. He is recognized as one of the most important twentieth-century Swiss illustrators of children's books.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany, in 1785 and 1786 respectively. The Brothers Grimm collected fairy tales, which until then had mostly been passed on orally, and captured them in writing for the first time as a collection. One of their most important sources was the storyteller Dorothea Viehmann. The first volume of their Children's and Household Tales was published just before Christmas 1812. Their fairy tales have appeared in many languages since and in a multitude of editions. In 2005 the Grimms' fairy tales were made part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register for the preservation of cultural documents.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9783969990025
ISBN 10	3969990025
Title	Susan Meiselas: Carnival Strippers Revisited
Author	Susan Meiselas
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Steidl Publishers
Year published	2022-04-07
Number of pages	264
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.