A Self Reunited: Melissa Shook’s ‘To Prove that I Exist’ at Nelson-Atkins tears apart warring vacuums of time

December, 1972: while New York City teeters towards financial ruin, one of its Lower East Side inhabitants, Melissa Shook (1939–2020), is torn asunder by warring vacuums on her time. She is both a newly minted mother and artist– endlessly needed and endlessly searching for more time.

Beneath the roiling shadows of the city’s unrest and her own personal maelstrom of anxieties, Shook decides to undertake a year-long self-portrait project. This self-portrait project, which Shook titled, ‘To Prove that I Exist,’ is, 51 years after its creation, being shown by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art through August 4th, 2024. 

The self-portrait project is Shook’s way of feeding a grenade down the cabled throats of these vacuums and dissecting everything that is blown out of their dark, hair-covered recesses. If one–like Shook–does not remember their childhood, how do they know how to be a mother?

What does it mean to be a mother at all? To be a friend to herself and her daughter? To be a woman? To be beautiful? Creative? Nothing at all? 

Aptly named ‘To Prove that I Exist,’ Shook’s self-portrait project documents a year in conversation with herself, during which she reflects, explores, appreciates, and celebrates these questions and the answers she finds. 

From 1972-1973, Shook took well over 200 self-portraits. After one exhibition of the project in its entirety, the series was tragically broken up. The self-portraits were lent to galleries and museums across the globe– the fragmentation of the project represents a division of Shook from herself. When Shook’s ‘To Prove That I Exist,’ series is broken apart an entire year’s worth of reflection is reduced to a few dramatic snapshots– most usually of her nude or curiously posed (sometimes both). Yet when the series is fully assembled, viewers can appreciate that Shook is more than the dramatics of a singular day. Which–if you are asking me–is the entire point of this project. 

It was not until 2024, four years after Shook’s death, that any museum displayed Shook’s 1972-1973 project in its entirety. That museum being our very own Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which received Shook’s ‘To Prove that I Exist’ series as a gift from the Hall Family Foundation. Thanks to The Nelson-Atkins’ the public can– for the first time in over half a century– trace the progression of the conversation Shook is having with herself as she visually explores the precipices of motherhood, womanhood, memory and artistry.

Afflicted with memory-loss, Shook was unable to recall a vast majority of her childhood. Arising from her lack of memories is a central question in her life and resultantly her first self-portrait project: how do you raise a daughter without remembering having been a child? Shook plays with this abiding conundrum by familiarly yet stoically posing alongside her daughter, Kristina, one day. Posing in positions with lively, free-flowing child-like exuberance herself another, and– by the conclusion of the project–by allowing Kristina to conduct her own self-portraits.

(Left) Melissa Shook, January 22, 1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. (Right) Kristina Shook. August 7, 1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

By privately performing childish curiosity for the camera, Shook offers herself a foundation of joy-filled, child-like memories to replace those of her forgotten past. She likewise gives herself material pieces of evidence– the self-portraits– to corroborate and ground the ephemeral memories of recreating these core memories. Connecting with her personal childhood exuberance in this way allows Shook to more fully relate to the vibrancy exhibited by young Kristina in her self-directed solo-shots. The fact that Kristina took her own self-portraits within the series further expands the poignancy of this project–it is not singularly Shook taking self-portraits and creatively exploring her sense of self, it is also her daughter who explores and creates within the series. 

The project’s images on motherhood and childhood documents Shook’s journey of rediscovering herself to better understand and connect with her daughter. As Shook reconnects with her inner vitality, joy and frivolity she likewise reconnects with her daughter. 

(Left) Melissa Shook. May, 1972, 1972. Gelatin silver print, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. (Right) Melissa Shook. June 5, 1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Alongside exploring motherhood and childhood, in ‘To Prove that I Exist’ Shook delves into the dark folds of womanhood. As one of the first women to undertake a daily self-portrait series, ‘To Prove that I Exist,’ stands as a radical demonstration of agency and corporal embracement for Shook’s time. She further asserts her agency, confidence and artistry by spoofing the hallmark, in Shook’s own words, ‘male vision of the nude female posing against a wall.’

In one shot predominated by her free flowing form, Shook abstains from including her face. She is not a mannequin displaying all of herself for the male gaze– she is hidden, anonymous yet simultaneously (partially) bare. In the next shot Shook adopts a warped face-forward position while being entirely uncovered. Shook does not reduce her explorations into her physical form to the placid male ideal. Rather, she energetically explores how her body moves through every mood, at every angle, and at every stage of undress. Throughout her series, Shook is frantic motion and quiet stagnation, alone and accompanied, faceless and face forward, evasive and forthright, photographer and subject. She is a woman as much as she is an artist. She photographically gives testament to the fact that she is more than the reductive ‘male vision of the nude female posing against a wall.’ 

(Left) Melissa Shook. March 17, 1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. (Right) Melissa Shook. April 29, 1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Shook’s nude self-portraits are an uninhibited investigation into the gendered body that has colored her lived experience. The slow divestment of clothing throughout her series is representative of not only the shedding of material obstructions, but of mental impediments in her self-exploration and celebration throughout the project. Every reverberance of aggression, curiosity, vulnerability, and confidence running through her poses is (art)fully barred for all who gaze at the photographs. She hides nothing from the viewer in the same way that she hides nothing from herself in this year of reflection. 

The Nelson-Atkins, in reuniting the self-portraits from ‘To Prove that I Exist, has posthumously reconnected Melissa Shook with herself. The series as a whole bears witness to Shook excavating and celebrating the forgotten, ignored, abhorred, and loved aspects of herself. The unified series gives poignant testament to the fact that through the cacophony of New York City’s daily dredging honks, screams and sighs, Melissa Shook was able to silently suture her identity back together. Melissa Shook was mother, child, woman, artist, individual: she and her daughter existed. These self-portraits stand as proof. 

“To Prove that I Exist”: Melissa Shook’s Daily Self-Portraits, 1972-1973 is on view through August 4th, 2024 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. Free admission.