Irina Ionesco

She was born in 1935…perhaps in Romania, perhaps in Paris; there is some uncertainty. Her parents are said to have been in the circus…perhaps as performers, perhaps in some other capacity; there is some uncertainty. She either spend her childhood years in Constanta, Romania or traveling. She apparently was a painter before she took up the camera, though I’ve found no examples of her painting.

What is known for certain is that in the early 1970s Irina Ionesco appeared unexpectedly in the Parisian art photography community with a collection of strange and erotic black and white photographs. The photographs were mostly portraits of women (some were self-portraits) partially-dressed in elaborate costumes, surrounded by bizarre props. While some of the portraits are fairly straightforward, many include elements that are distinctly fetishistic. In those early photographs, the women are often looking toward the camera in a disinterested way…as if they are unimpressed and unconcerned by the viewer’s attention.

By 1974 her work was on display in the Nikon Gallery in Paris. Her photographs were featured in a variety of art and fashion magazines, and sold in galleries throughout Europe and Asia. She was hired by Vogue and other magazines to shoot fashion spreads. She went from obscurity to fame…a rather localized sort of fame, to be sure, but fame nonetheless…in an astonishingly short time.

Ionesco gave birth to a daughter, Eva, in 1965. Not surprisingly, she often photographed Eva. At some point in the early 1970s, Ionesco began to photograph her daughter in the same way she photographed adult women. Wearing lavish costumes, amid props that seem to have some strange symbolic meaning, partially dressed, in erotic poses.

Even in Paris…even in Paris of the mid-1970s…the photographs of Eva Ionesco sparked controversy. Some critics hailed them as works of unparalleled genius, a commentary of the balance point between organic virginal beauty and manufactured eroticism. Not surprisingly, many people decried them as blatant child pornography. Just about everybody found the photographs profoundly disturbing in one way or another.

Ionesco, it seems, simply gave a Gallic shrug to the fuss and went on about her business, apparently ignoring both the critics who praised her and the critics who upbraided her. She continued to shoot photographs for fashion magazines, for the art galleries, and for herself. She continued to photograph her daughter as well as adult women. She did a photo shoot for Vogue Japan using Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as the theme. Her use of children as models could be interpreted as blithe ignorance of the scope of the controversy over Eva’s portraits or as a deliberate statement that she would shoot the photographs she wanted to shoot, regardless of complaints about her.

Ionesco began to lose some of her supporters when she allowed her daughter to pose for Playboy in 1975, and then for the Spanish edition of Penthouse in 1976, when Eva was still only 11 years old. Ionesco also allowed Eva to act in a Roman Polanski film, Le Locataire. This was two years before Polanski would plead guilty in the U.S. to a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, and it should be noted that there is no suggestion that anything untoward happened between Polanski and Eva. The Polanski case, however, ignited more controversy for Ionesco. For her part, she continued to allow Eva to act in other films, most of which were respectable. Yet she also permitted her to appear in a sci-fi soft-core porn movie called Spermula. With each questionable decision in her daughter's 'career' Ionesco's vocal support was reduced.

After that first flush of success, Ionesco’s work became fairly static. That isn’t to suggest she disappeared from the art scene. She continues to sell her photographs in galleries and she seems to have no trouble finding fashion work. In 1996, when she was in her early 60s, Ionesco was exhibiting her work (mostly her older work) at galleries in Tokyo and her name was still powerful enough to get her an invitation to shoot portraits of local Yakuza leaders…a rare event. An interviewer who attended one of her shoots a decade later describes the 70 year old Ionesco in this way: “…she stood out from everyone in the room with her eccentricity; her hair died orange and swept back off her face into a French twist, with matching orange eyebrows and a full face of make-up. She had tattoos running down her arms and was immaculately dressed.” The photograph belowwas taken during that shoot.

Ionesco is seemingly unfazed by the fact that she was briefly notorious in European art circles thirty years ago. By all accounts she retains a close relationship with her daughter. Eva used the money she earned from the movies to attend the Theater des Amandiers, one of the most exclusive schools for the performing arts in France, and continues to work in films in Europe.

Although the furor over Eva’s photographs has abated, the controversy still remains. Are the photographs of her daughter art, or is it pornography? Does the fact that the photos were made by her mother make the photographs more offensive or less offensive? Are the photographs more controversial because they show Eva in age-inappropriate clothing? At what point does it become appropriate for innocence to wear the trappings of adult sensuality? By dressing her in nylons, does the photograph become erotic or absurd? Or both?

I confess, I was…and still am…hesitant to include Irina Ionesco in the Sunday Salon series. I originally did the research for this two months ago, and I’ve spent the intervening period of time debating whether or not to follow through on it. Obviously, I came to the conclusion to publish it.

Some people claim it is the job of artists to examine social taboos. I disagree; I’m inclined to think it is the job of artists to make art…but sometimes art includes an examination of what society finds offensive and/or forbidden. I am less troubled by Ionesco’s portraits of her daughter than I am by her decision to allow her daughter to be photographed by magazines like Penthouse and appear in soft core porn movies. To me, the former is an artistic decision; the latter is an economic decision. At the same time, I have to admit that that economic decision allowed Eva Ionesco to attend a very exclusive and expensive school. At this distance, it is impossible to determine if the experience harmed Eva in any way. She apparently says it hasn’t…but who can say?

In the end, it seems to me the questions raised by the work of Irina Ionesco are worthy of discussion. Perhaps that is the primary value of her work.