Annie Leibovitz Outside the Frame

"On a recent Tuesday, at an event space down the block from a round-the-clock car wash, the photographer Annie Leibovitz was in crisis. "They're bouncing off each other!" she exclaimed, pointing at two catty-corner walls, each displaying a photograph of a woman: one, a Bronx schoolteacher by a blackboard; the other, a soldier smeared with camo face paint. The images were projections, and slightly washed out. " And they're out of focus!""

""It was actually Hillary Clinton's idea," Leibovitz said, of the commemoration. "And I liked it. The book was out of print." The original project consists of portraits whose subjects range from coal miners to Serena Williams, bull riders to a John-less Yoko. Leibovitz has now added a second volume, studded with celebrities from the recent past: a pregnant Rihanna, Greta Thunberg at a protest, Billie Eilish looking forlorn."

Annie Leibovitz oversaw installation of a pop-up exhibition for an expanded edition of her 1999 book Women. Technical problems with projected images produced washed-out, slightly out-of-focus prints that prompted abrupt adjustments. The commemoration originated with Hillary Clinton's idea and the publisher released a signed, $99.95 expanded volume that sold out on the publisher's site. The original project assembled portraits ranging from coal miners to Serena Williams; the new volume adds recent celebrities such as a pregnant Rihanna, Greta Thunberg at a protest, and Billie Eilish looking forlorn. A screen technician cycled images including Taylor Swift and Martha Stewart. Financial setbacks in 2009 included a twenty-four-million-dollar nonpayment lawsuit and looming bankruptcy.

Read at The New Yorker