The Girl Friends

Two women on a rumpled mattress face each other in intimate conversation. The artist made these emotionally charged life-size figures by wrapping live models in cloth bandages dipped in plaster. The models were Jill Johnston, art critic for New York’s Village Voice newspaper in the 1960s and 1970s, and her partner at the time. Johnston was known for her outspoken critique of the era’s dominant cultural trends, her support of gay rights, and her openness about her own lesbian identity.