ART
Gregory Crewdson |
Written 30 January |
Saturday 28 February, 10:00Galerie Daniel Templon, 75003 [map]
Gregory Crewdson (born September 26, 1962) is an American photographer who is best known for elaborately staged, surreal scenes of American homes and neighbourhoods. Beneath the Roses, Crewdson’s latest work presents everyday scenes with charged, surreal moods that hint at the longings and malaise of suburban America. Inspired by fantasy cinema, the series “Beneath the Roses” proposes a variety of psychological and family situations, to the point of psychosis. At nightfall, in a peaceful suburban universe, people are frozen in strange actions. A naked pregnant woman waits in front of a dilapidated house. An anxious looking woman takes a bath in a gloomy room, a medicine bottle on the edge of the sink. These strange scenes are chronicles of frustrations, unexpressed desires and anguish. As Crewdson explains “the issue is to create one’s own world. Mine is a décor on which I project my own psychological dramas.”
The world of Gregory Crewdson plays with the conventional codes of fantasy cinema, from Hitchcock to Lynch or even Spielberg. He works like a director with decors entirely conceived from storyboards, a full film crew and special effects worthy of science-fiction films. However, according to him, only photography, compared to that of other narrative forms, constantly remains silent. There is no before and no after. The events the camera captures remain a mystery.
Photography professor at Yale university, Crewdson embodies the new generation of photographers (Jeff Wall and James Casebere) working in the genre of staged photography. His work continues to be influential for a whole generation of artists blending cinema and photography.
