In her series Mail Order, the female characters of Marianna Rothen’s imaginary universe are shown for the first time in the company of men. Until now, men have remained decidedly absent in Rothen’s images, but it seems as if in the current debate over gender politics, women’s rights and the Me Too movement, it is inalienable not to include men in the (greater) picture. While for a century a male dominated Hollywood has often depicted women as objects and commodities, in Marianna Rothen’s book the tables have finally turned. No man in Mail Order is real, they are all mannequins. As the title suggests, they are like sex dolls, objects, mail order partners. The female protagonist, played by Rothen herself, creates her perfect man and makes him dress, pose and perform his manhood in the ways she demands. By flipping this power dynamic Rothen shows how deeply ingrained the expected roles between women and men and their archetypes are.

First edition: 600 copies | hardcover | 80 pages | fake leather with a photograph tipped-in | essays by Charlotte Jansen and William J. Simmons | designed by Alexandra Bruns