Gregory Crewdson, untitled from the Twilight series (click image to enlarge)
Photographer Gregory Crewdson's ideas for photographs come to him while he's swimming, he says. His images must "first be beautiful, while also imbued with a mood of tension, isolation and anxiety". The scenes he stages and photographs (with the assistance of set designers and lighting techs recruited from independent film crews), reflect an imagination preoccupied with melancholia and loneliness. His Twilight series from 2001 was my first encounter with his dark and satirically evocative work. The untitled image of a smoking overturned school bus in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, reacquaints me with the perverse thoughts I occasionally cooked up while riding home on the school bus.
Pictured above, a lone and exhausted woman sits in the middle of a flower-bed that looks to have forcefully overtaken her living room. Below, a distraught looking man on his hands and knees is surrounded by ethereal purple lights emerging from his dining room floor, without his consent. Also below, a pregnant woman stands outside in a baby pool, accompanied by two androgynous looking people. In all of these scenes an eery and very alluring science-fiction-esque mood emphasizes a tangible tension, heightening the anxiety Crewdson strives for.
Untitled images from the Twilight series. Click to enlarge
The artist's repeated return to disturbing scenes of suburbia (let's call it disturbia) suggests some kind of obsession with this theme. But what is also visible in these and his later work is a fascination with the moment between then and now. Crewdson hopes we'll imagine what has just happened and what is about to happen, when we view his work. Each photograph offers a generous helping of material with which our imaginations can run wild. I often think alien abduction or post- nuclear attack when I look at his photos. What about you?
Although Crewdson was not the first to begin experimenting with staged photography (sometimes referred to as the tableau form), he is one of the most well known. Beginning in the 1970s and gaining impetus in the 1980s, this form has become a standard art-world practice, to the chagrin of some photographers and critics who find the photos un-spontaneous and appearing more like staged theater sets. These critics complain that there's nothing worth “seeing” when the photograph is pre-arranged. Other critics attack this style as leaning towards fashion photography -- melodramatic and posed, which I agree with when looking at the work of the AES & F Collective.
Jeff Wall is another photographer to explore if you are interested in learning more about the tableau form; rather than staging scenes that he's conjured up in his imagination, he composes scenes after iconic historical paintings. For example, a viewer familiar with Hokusai's 19th century painting, A Sudden Gust of Wind (below left), might recognize Wall's direct compositional and thematic reference to it, in his photograph of the same title (below right). Someone unfamiliar with Hokusai's painting might simply see a strange but intriguingly beautiful photograph, when looking at Wall's version.
left: Hokusai's A Sudden Gust of Wind (19th Century) right: Jeff Wall's A Sudden Gust of Wind (1993) click images to enlarge
Back to Crewdson. I have to admit that the initial seduction of his glossy, impeccably designed yet bitingly cynical photographs was for me eventually diluted by repetition and overuse. Whereas once his dystopian scenes appeared original, they began to look tired.
Which is why I was pleased to recently discover his Sanctuary series from 2009. Shot on location at the legendary Cinecittà studios on the outskirts of Rome, this body of black and white photographs is the first work Crewdson has created outside of the United States.
Cinecitta studio was founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini for propaganda purposes, under the slogan "Il cinema è l'arma più forte" , "cinema is the most powerful weapon". It was here that Federico Fellini broke with the tradition of filming on location and built a near-exact replica of Rome’s famed Via Veneto, for filming La Dolce Vita. Known as Fellini's stomping grounds but also utilized by Roberto Rosselini and Michelangelo Antoni, the studio has produced many Italian classics and has hosted major productions such as Ben Hur and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. The studio has a long history, from Allied bombings in WWII, to a fire, to bankruptcy, to government privitization. Today, the studio hosts television productions and is closed to the public.
Left: Fellini on the set of Satyricon, Cinecitta studio, 1970. Right: Film still from La Dolce Vita, Cinecitta Studio, 1960. click images to enlarge
All Sanctuary images below courtesy of Gregory Crewdson. Click photos to enlarge.
Immediately noticeable in Crewdson's Sanctuary series is the absence of human beings. Instead, the ghostly architectural ruins, which also happen to be defunct outdoor film sets, are the subjects of the photos. Ironically, there were no custom built soundstages, paid actors or production crews employed for this series.
A bold departure from his earlier work in some ways, these photos convey the emotionality that characterizes his work. Melancholy dominates -- decaying sets, statues overtaken by weeds and traces of bygone productions are a nostalgic suggestion of the past. And perhaps the future? What exactly are we looking at? A historical dream-scape? A timeless place? I like film critic A.O. Scott's statement that "Like the world of the unconscious, Crewdson gives us the sense that what we are looking at is both real and illusory"
Lacking the sci-fi mystery and drama that are usually so central to his work, these photos are instead elegant and quiet. Devoid of action yet rich in texture and tonality, Crewdson again invites us into an intimate scene where we might tip-toe through secret places. And like all of his work, he encourages us to imagine our 'moment between then and now', for each scene. As Benito Mussolini said, Cinecitta is the place where dreams become reality.
