"Moon Mouth"

Mary Beth Edelson took numerous photographs of herself nude in a natural landscape, be that rocks, hills, caves, or beaches mostly prior to 1977. She often collaged or drew on these images, as in Moon Mouth of 1975 in which her naked body is positioned behind a rock with arms raised and an image of a shell is pasted over her face. Several versions of this image were produced, sometimes with additional drawing or painting on the surface, with the title of Goddess Head. The artist intended to conjure up the Great Goddess and an embodied spiritual state of being. This image also appeared as Goddess Head/Soft in the Femfolio collaboration along with prints by 19 additional artists all of whom were featured in the exhibition How American Women Artists Invented Postmodernism: 1970-75 curated by Judith Brodsky and Ferris Olin in 2005. (Text by Kathleen Wentrack)