Me
Cammie Toloui (she/her) is a first-generation Iranian-American queer artist born and raised in California. She holds a degree in photojournalism from San Francisco State University, where she also taught photography.
Her work as a documentary photographer has taken her to Russia, where she photographed punks and biker gangs; England, where she documented life on the streets of London; and in America, where she shot inside ambulances, strip clubs and other public/private worlds.
She delights in exploring and exposing taboos, finding humor in unexpected juxtapositions and discovering a subject’s unguarded truth.
Her work has been shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.
Internationally, her work has been shown at Tate Modern in London, Galerie Shmorévaz in Paris and most recently as part of the Biennale della Fotografia Femminile in Italy.
Early in her career she won the New York Times Award for Excellence in Photojournalism. Her book $5 for 3 Minutes (published in 2021 by Void) was shortlisted in the 2022 Rencontres d'Arles Book Award and in 2024, Cammie was delighted to win the Fotobus Library Award for Best Photobook of the Year.
She continues to document her life and uncover taboos through her photography, her jewelry and her band the Yeastie Girlz.
Education
1995 BA Photojournalism, San Francisco State University, USA
Solo Exhibitions
2024
Private Pleasures, Haus N Gallery, Athens, Greece
The Lusty Lady, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon, USA
2023
Private Pleasures, Shmorévaz Gallery, Paris, France
2019
Five Dollars for Three Minutes, Colour Index Agency, London UK
2013
Streets of London, Alley Cat Gallery, San Francisco USA
2006
Interloper, Mythos Gallery, Iowa City USA
1994
The Lusty Lady Series, SF Camerawork Gallery, San Francisco, USA
Group Exhibitions
2024
Systema Plus, Palais des Arts, Marseille, France
Sofia Pride Arts: It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found, +359 Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
The Lusty Lady Series, Biennale della Fotografia Femminile, Mantova, Italy
2022
On Our Backs - The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work, Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca, New York, USA
2019
Mission Artists United Open Studios, Alley Cat Gallery, San Francisco USA
2018
Nature Morte, Guildhall Art Gallery, London UK
2017
AnonymX - The End of the Privacy Era, Museum of Art, Haifa Israel
2010
Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, Tate Modern, London UK & San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco USA
2007
In the Fullness of Time, Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco USA
2005
Unzipped, Chait Gallery, Iowa City USA
1994
The Lusty Lady Series, PS122, New York City, USA
Bad Girls, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City, USA
1992
Mark I. Chester Gallery, San Francisco, USA
Awards / Residencies
2024
Winner, Fotobus Library Book of the Year Award for $5 For 3 Minutes, Fotobus Society, Germany
2023
Residency, Stove Works, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
2022
Shortlisted, Rencontres d'Arles Book Award for $5 For 3 Minutes, Arles, France
2005
First Place, Unzipped group exhibition, Chait Gallery, Iowa City USA
1996
New York Times Award for Excellence in Photojournalism, presented at the Eddie Adams Workshop, New York USA
1992
First Place, Greg Robinson Memorial Photojournalism Scholarship
Monographs / Group Catalogs / Books
2021
$5 for 3 Minutes, monograph, published by Void, Athens, Greece
2010
Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera since 1870, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Yale University Press, USA
2009
This Day of Change, Kodansha, Japan
2004
924 Gilman, MAXIMUMROCKNROLL, USA
1998
Nerve: Literate Smut, Broadway Books, San Francisco, USA
Bibliography
2025
Moffy Gathorne Hardy, “5 dollars for 3 minutes”, A Nice Magazine, Issue 3, January 2025
2024
Max Wiener, “Cammie Toloui: The Lusty Lady | Blue Sky”, Museé Magazine, July 17, 2024
“The Lusty Lady”, Mudec United, Issue 2, 2024
2023
Milena III, “Photo Saint Germain : dans la cabine aux tabous, avec Cammie Toloui”, Fisheye Magazine, November 14, 2023
“Cammie Toloui”, Les Inrockuptibles, Issue 23, July 2023
2022
Costanza Spina, “De strip-teaseuse à photographe : la sexualité masculine par Cammie Toloui”, Lense.fr
Avvy Mar, “$5 For Three Minutes by Cammie Toloui”, KBOO Radio, September 15, 2022
“Cammie Toloui”, Discarded XXX Magazine, June 2022
Lily Burana, “Once inside, a customer and dancer are alone, separated only by a pane of glass”, Bitch Media, February, 2022
“Der Blick zurück von Cammie Toloui”, Dummy Magazine, Winter 2022
2021
“Cammie Toloui”, Gaze Magazine, Issue 3, December 2021
Linda Zhengová, “Cammie Toloui: On Creating a Mirror to Male Gaze”, Discarded Magazine, October
Blake Andrews, “Cammie Toloui, 5 Dollars for 3 Minutes”, Collector Daily, July 23, 2021
Diane Smyth “‘We always see sex from the man’s view’: Cammie Toloui, the peep show performer who peeped back”, The Guardian, August 16, 2021
“Sex Work from a Bygone Era”, Klub Verboten, July 8, 2021
Donia Ghezlane-Lala, “Dans les années 1990, un strip-club féministe et ses clients documentés par Cammie Toloui”, Konbini Arts, July 27, 2021
Miss Rosen, “Inside the Private Pleasures booth of a legendary 90s feminist strip club”, i-D Magazine, June 16, 2021
Diane Smyth, “The Other Side of the Peep Show Captured by a San Francisco Stripper”, Elephant Magazine, May 9, 2021
Dylan Calves, “«5 Dollars for 3 minutes»: une strip-teaseuse met ses clients à nu”, Libération, March 12, 2021
2019
Miss Rosen, “The radical feminist sex worker who photographed her clients at their most grotesque”, Document Journal, November 2019
1994
B. Ruby Rich, “Bad Girl Art”, Elle Magazine, 1994
Watch Cammie's artist talk in Portland, Oregon at Blue Sky Gallery on July 6th, 2024 (link opens in new window)