Lauren Greenfield will be speaking at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles next Thursday, October 13, as part of the museum’s IRIS Nights Lecture Series. Here’s the official description:

“Lauren Greenfield will screen and discuss the digital feature she directed as part of the BEAUTY CULTURE exhibit. The 30-minute documentary explores our cultural and historical obsession with beauty and the way beauty has been defined and sought after in contemporary culture. In addition to the film, Greenfield will also show new photography as well as relevant works from her career.”

Tickets are free but will go quickly, and you’ll need to register in advance. Online registration starts today at noon PST, with a second batch of tickets opening up tomorrow at 9:30 AM PST. Go here to sign up.

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Here’s a look at some of the early press, opening night, and Lauren’s interview.

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Nino Munoz and Gisele Bundchen at the opening of "Beauty CULTure." Screenshot from Vanity Fair Daily.

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Vanity Fair Daily: Inside the gallery, Gisele browsed photographs (she is in many of them) with photographer Nino Muñoz. “Some of the times I’ll look at a photo of myself and ask ‘Ugh, what’s happening?’” she told us. “But the most important thing for me is that I’m never looking at the pictures asking, ‘Do I look pretty for my eyes,’ because I am my worst critic. It’s more about, ‘Did I capture what is trying to be captured?’” (Full article: Gisele Bündchen at the Annenberg: “I Am My Worst Critic“)

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Anna Nicole Smith. Photo by Matthew Rolston. From the exhibition "Beauty CULTure."

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Photo District News: Manon Sloame, a critic and curator who participated as an exhibition consultant and wrote the texts for the show. But, she says, “When there’s an overemphasis on trying to achieve the look that is perpetuated in the media and fashion magazines, with all their retouching, then what starts off as fun becomes a perversion.” One of the most fascinating things about the exhibition, Sloame says, is the chance to hear from photographers who work in the fashion and beauty industry in a section of the exhibition called Voice of the Photographers. “You would think that they would be so vocal in supporting this [idealized] notion of beauty, but they’re not. They want more diversity. They want to photograph a more interesting range of people. They want to have more women of color.” (Full article: “Photo Exhibition Challenges Media’s Standards of Beauty”)

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Nylon magazine on Lauren Greenfield and "Beauty CULTure."

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From left: Nino Munoz, Gisele Bundchen, stylist Evet Sanchez, Bill Stockland, and Lauren Greenfield at the gala for "Beauty CULTure." Photo by Frank Evers / courtesy of the INSTITUTE blog.

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Los Angeles Times: Greenfield was commissioned by the Annenberg to do the documentary portion of the exhibit, which includes footage of toddler beauty queens with spray tans and outlandish costumes, female body building and Jackie Goldberg, Ms. Senior L.A. 2005, who confidently says in the film that “the question really isn’t ‘To be or not to be’” but rather “‘To age or not to age.’” Her pink-tinged hair and enthusiasm for the latest and greatest in facial fillers would have one assuming she believes in the latter. Greenfield also filmed a group of female high school students looking into a two-way mirror as they make themselves up for their on-camera interviews.”I really wanted to take a 360-degree look at the issue from all different perspectives,” she says. (Full article: ‘Beauty Culture’: The eye of the beholder: The power of the lens to shape notions of beauty is brought into sharp focus at the Annenberg Space for Photography)

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From left: Gisele Bundchen, Katie Holmes, and Halle Berry at the opening gala for "Beauty CULTure." Photos by Stefanie Keenan / WireImage. Click screenshot to see more photos from the event at the Los Angeles Times website.

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“Voice of the Photographer: Lauren Greenfield”: “I was really shy growing up and the camera gave me a kind of bravery that I didn’t have in y regular life. And so I think that was part of why I became a photographer because I noticed that with that camera, I kind of had this incentive, this motivation to go beyond my comfort zone and go beyond where I would both in terms of situations and also in my interactions with people. I was much assertive than I would be normally. … I have come to all of my subject matter from a cultural perspective. And I always even when I was in high school was attracted to the idea of social documentary. … I learned that photography could comment on society and reveal things about society that we didn’t know before.”

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Click to view the Annenberg's "Voice of the Photographer" video interview with Lauren Greenfield.

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From Zimbio: Daryl Hannah, "Opening Night Of 'Beauty Culture' At The Annenberg Space For Photography - Arrivals." Click image to see more.

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Related: Gayle Anderson of KTLA interviews Lauren Greenfield

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Backstage at the Paul Smith Women show, London, September 2002. Photo by Felicia Webb. From the exhibition "Beauty CULTure."

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How do we define female beauty? The exhibition “Beauty CULTure,” which opens Saturday at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, examines some of the prevailing answers through a wide range of images, from portraits of celebrities who are worshiped for their looks to photos documenting a desperate need to conform to a perceived idea of perfection.

“Beauty CULTure,” on view through November 27, features a who’s who of photography—more than 100 photographers, including Gilles Bensimon, Albert Watson, Herb Ritts, Guy Bourdin, Matthew Rolston, Lillian Bassman, Mary Ellen Mark, Ellen von Unwerth, Nino Munoz, and Lauren Greenfield, whom the Annenberg commissioned to direct a documentary.

“One of the show’s highlights is a 30-minute documentary that will play every hour. It was directed by the photographer Lauren Greenfield, whose prints are also featured,” writes Simone S. Oliver in a New York Times feature on “Beauty CULTure.”

Lauren is one of the show’s four Featured Artists, alongside Albert Watson, Tyen, and Melvin Sokolsky. This marks the second time that this Featured Artist honor has been bestowed on her, the first being the Annenberg’s inaugural show, “L8S ANG3LES.”

“Ms. Greenfield has covered beauty-related subjects like aging throughout her career, mostly from a cultural perspective. During her research for the film, she said she learned to look at the subject from a biological standpoint with the help of Nancy Etcoff, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, who is interviewed in the film. Dr. Etcoff wrote the book Survival of the Prettiest, an exploration of the biological relationship people have with beauty. Ms. Greenfield said her dialogue with Dr. Etcoff ‘gave me perspective when shooting things like eating disorders, plastic surgery, fashion.’”

The Times‘ Lens blog is featuring a slideshow of images from the exhibition:

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Click image to access slideshow.

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“As much as beauty can astonish and inspire, it can also corrupt and subvert, rendering all else—and even itself—broken and obsolete,” Wallis Annenberg, chairman of the board, president and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation, said in the exhibition’s press release. “The great contemporary photographers do so much more than chronicle and celebrate what is beautiful in our time. They dig beneath it, they confront our compulsion with it, and they turn art’s mirror on ourselves as well.”

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