The Trans Body in Christer Strömholm’s Vännerna Från Place Blanche (1983)

Abstract

This article explores Christer Strömholm’s depictions of trans women in his 1983 photobook Vännerna Från Place Blanche (Friends of Place Blanche). Specifically, it queries the inclusion of portraits that unmask his subjects’ projected trans identities in a work about friendship and solidarity with gender non-conformity. The first part of the article considers the photographer’s use of French Nouvelle Vague film stills as templates for his sixties’ era Place Blanche portraits. The photographs, provided to his subjects as gifts, depict them as movie heroines. Unlike comparable imagery produced by Parisian trans cabarets, the film still portraits do not undermine or qualify the women’s gender presentations. The second part of the article considers Strömholm’s artistic use of portraits where the women subtly or blatantly fail to “pass”. We argue that because the photographer represented himself artistically as an adventurous explorer of liminal peoples and places, and a collector of abject things, his project required that he “out” some of his subjects; otherwise, it would simply come across as unoriginal copying of cinematic still styles. The unmaskings were achieved variously, with a few full-frontal naked shots being the most direct and uncompromising.