Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1962.  After seeing a Diane Arbus retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, he became interested in photography.  He studied photography at the State University of New York at Purchase, where he recieved a B.A in 1985.  While there he was classmates with Jan Groover and Laurie Simmons.  Crewdson then went on to Yale for an M.F.A. in photography, which he recieved in 1988.  One of Crewdson’s early series, Natural Wonder took place in Lee, Massacusetts, where he had also shot his series of portraits for his thesis at Yale.

In 1992 Crewdson developed his Natural Wonder series, “in which birds, insects, and mutilated body parts are presented in surreal yet mundane domestic settings” (Guggenheim museum).  Crewdson’s next series, Hover, (1995) turned away from brightly colored imagery, and switched to “black-and-white bird’s-eye views of strange situations set in the streets and backyards of Lee” (Guggenheim museum). 

It wasn’t until Crewdson’s Twilight series in 1998 that the surreal and cinematic elements of his imagery began to emerge, as he re-introduced color into his large scale prints.  Crewdson’s photos have become more and more elaborate, “requiring dozens of assistants, Hollywood-style lighting, and specially crafted stage sets” (Guggenheim museum).  Crewdson’s photos, although set in American suburbia, are eerie and dark, and play with an element of the surreal.  Although at first glance some of his photos seem to depict normal surburbia, upon closer examination one begins to feel the tension and unease that his photographs create. 

Crewdson currently teaches photography at Yale, and lives and works in Lee, New Haven, and New York. 

 

Imagery:

http://coromandal.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/amstaged_0305.jpg

 

http://blog.camera80.ro/images/2006/november/gregory-crewdson-6.jpg

 

http://vienofoto.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/gregory-crewdson.jpg

 

http://sarahh.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/00027gyt.jpg

 

Interview:

http://www.sitesantafe.org/exhibitions/virtualgalleries/frcrwan/crewdsonqa.html

 

Gallery representing artist:

http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=66

 

No artist website available.

New Topographics Movement

Descriptive word: Realism

“To work in a way integrated with architecture, I think the work we’re speaking about here is not a question of putting my work in his building but a question of using that building and the activities in that building as a way of generating a dialogue in images. The work is not even site-specific, it’s really site-generated. It’s something that’s made exclusively for that space and that space with its present series of functions. In that sense it becomes like most works today ephemeral.”
Lewis Baltz

Grundberg, Andy.  “Review/Photography: Beauty and Challenge in Modern Landscape.”  The New York Times.  13 July 1990, late final ed. : C14. 

Andy Grundberg is a an art critic and administrative chair of photography at the Corcoran College of Art and Design.  In his article in the New York Times, Grundberg compares the aesthetics of the New Topographics Movement to the more contemporary “New American Pastoral” movement.  Grundberg discusses the impact that the New Topographics movement has had on the history of photographic landscapes, especially since Ansel Adams.  Grundberg points out that both the New Topographics and American Pastoral movements take a critical viewpoint when photographing landscapes.  Grundberg also discusses the different ways that artists from these two movements chose to portray the relationship between beauty and the environment.  He states about the two movements that “both reflect photographers' attempts to devise a documentary style able to call attention to environmental issues that defy conventional description.”

 

The New Topographics style has influenced my work in many ways.  It has made me more aware of the juxtaposition of the man-made and nature, and how we choose to view the environment that we live in.  I think the bleak anonymity of the photos in the New Topographics is an interesting departure from the romanticized landscapes that the art world had been accostomed to for so long.   I find it interesting that the desolate, anonymous, sometimes deadpan style of the New Topographics movement is clevery used to generate a narrative, using the buildings as “dialogue.”  This is ultimately my aim in creating a series of photos, but  I have yet to decide on what exactly I am trying to say. 

Images:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/uploads/Baltz2001_5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/baltz_lewis.php&h=283&w=430&sz=39&hl=en&start=9&um=1&usg=__6ncbdQwA8Ux92vWNBQHl4HPauPc=&tbnid=GUwc5-PxrU5KFM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlewis%2Bbaltz%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DG

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