We Others
Donna Gottschalk
LE BAL and Atelier EXB
English
Texts by Hélène Giannecchini, Julie Héraut and Carla Williams
Hardcover
253 pages
195 x 245 mm
2025
ISBN 9782365114486
First monograph dedicated to Donna Gottschalk, WE OTHERS brings together a previously unseen selection of her photographs taken between the 1960s and 1990s. The photographer’s journey unfolds alongside the intimate narrative of Hélène Giannecchini, with literature extending the gesture of photography. Portraits of loved ones, scenes of activist life, everyday places — the book documents a queer, social, and personal history of the United States, from the rooftops of Alphabet City to the beaches of California. The collection is completed by a selection of archival materials as well as previously unpublished essays by Julie Héraut and Carla Williams.
(Source: https://www.le-bal.fr/en/publications/we-others)
About the Artist
Donna Gottschalk was an American photographer and activist. Gottschalk grew up in the tenement housing of New York’s Lower East Side. As a teenager, while studying at the High School of Art and Design, she got to know the city’s gay and lesbian bars (Kooki’s, Paula’s and Colony), highly dangerous venues at the time, controlled by the Mafia. She produced political posters and documents and began photographing LGBTQI activist groups from the age of 17, on joining the Gay Liberation Front (GLT). She can be seen holding the poster “I am your worst fear / I am your best fantasy” in the famous picture taken by photojournalist Diana Davies (born 1938) during the first gay and lesbian demonstration, Christopher Street Day in New York, a celebration marking the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. She met photographer Joan E. Biren (JEB, born 1944) at the Black Panther Party convention, to which Angela Davis had invited the GLF. JEB appears in many of D. Gottschalk’s photographs of the time.
(Source: https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/donna-gottschalk)
About the Publisher
LE BAL is an independent place dedicated to exhibitions, publications, ideas and education, centered on the contemporary image in all its forms – photography, video, film and new media. Founded in 2010 by Raymond Depardon and Diane Dufour with the support of the Mairie de Paris, it operates as a non-profit organization. In 2018, Christine Vidal was appointed co-director of LE BAL. Since 2008, LE BAL’s educational center, La Fabrique du Regard, has been working in-depth work to train young people in and through the image. Over the past 15 years, we have worked with 30,000 young people, 1,600 teachers, 650 artists and members of the educational and cultural community across 275 neighbourhoods, from primary to high school, in schools or within social structures. The primary objective is to empower young people to think about the world in images, to train active viewers who are concerned by the profound upheavals in our societies.
https://www.le-bal.fr
(Source: https://www.le-bal.fr/en/project)
