Jo Spence. Collaboration with Terry Dennett Stamped on the reverse The present work is one of Spence and Dennett's most celebrated pictures. It in fact exists in slightly different formats:...
The present work is one of Spence and Dennett's most celebrated pictures. It in fact exists in slightly different formats: clearly taken from more than one negative: one complete frontal, the other slightly oblique.
The work itself is a direct transcription of a work by John Heartfield. Its title is the English translation of Heartfiled's title "Spitzenprodukte des kapitalismus" and the text that Spence holds - "I'll take (almost) any work" - is a witty paraphrase of the sign held in Heartfield's picture: "Nehme jede arbeit".
Where the two areas differ is in the games with gender played by Spence. Hearfield's image is a hetrosexual image that serves as a constructed depiction of a bride and groom. Spence, too, similarly stands beside a mannequin in bridal wear, but the fact that she is female complicates this depiction. Similarly, the fact that she wears "male" clothes suggests that she, too, is playing a role, that of a male worker. (On this gendering see Siona Wilson Art Labor, Sex Politics. Feminist Effects in 1970s British Art and Performance, University of Minesota Press, 2015, pp.145-148. Siona reproduces the slightly more oblique version of this work)
Spence's engagement with Heatfield's work at this time is also evident from its inclusion in her thesis: Jo Spence, 'Fairy Tales and Photography... or, another look at Cinderella', unpublished undergraduate thesis, Polytechnic of Central London, 1982. (see illustration)
Jo Spence Memorial Archive Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
Exhibitions
A Different Mirror. Photographs from the Hyman Collection at Photo Oxford 2021: Women & Photography - Ways of seeing and being seen, 2021 (This print) Jo Spence : from Fairy Tales to Phototherapy. Photographs from the Hyman Collection, Arnolfini Bristol, (18th May 2020 - 20th June 2021) (this print)
Literature
Jo Spence, Putting myself in the picture: A political, personal, and photographic autobiography, 1986