Since the invention of photography almost 170 years ago, it has been primarily women who have used this technical medium to project themselves through role-playing and masquerading. Besides the experimental urge to constantly create something new, the camera has also served as a means of questioning clichés of female representation. Playing with the image of the eternally feminine was, and still is, an examination of gender identity, its social and political definition, and transgressing its boundaries.This publication focuses on contemporary women artists such as Cindy Sherman and Pipilotti Rist, who with the aid of photography and video art probe, deconstruct, and redefine the female image. At the same time, this book reaches back into the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when women such as Countess Castiglione, Claude Cahun, and Florence Henri discovered photography as a means of (self-)portrayal and enquiry. Artists featured (selection): Diane Arbus, Monica Bonvicini, Claude Cahun, Julia Margaret Cameron, Valie Export, Nan Goldin, Mathilde ter Heijne, Florence Henri, Birgit Jürgenssen, Sarah Lucas, Ana Mendieta, Tracey Moffatt, ringl + pit, Pipilotti Rist, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, Wanda Wulz   Exhibition schedule: Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, July 17–October 26, 2008