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15/11/2011

Sarah Moon

Galerie Persiehl & Heine, Hamburg

Since the seventies, the elegant and memorable photographs of Paris-based artist Sarah Moon (*1941, France) are an inherent part of the international fashion world. Scarcely anybody will be able to elude the particular magic of her works, like those for Dior, Chanel, or Cacharel. Galerie Persiehl & Heine presents an eminent selection of Sarah Moons unique photographs, whose distinctive and intimate pictorial language deploys a powerful poetical vibrancy.

Sarah Moon is an autodidact: She acquired her photographic mastery when she worked as a model after finishing art school. In 1968, she changed from working in front of the camera to working behind it, for good, and instantly succeeded with her unique style: In the same year, she participated in a group show on vanguard fashion photography in Delpire gallery in Paris. With this exhibition, Moons career was launched; soon, her works would be present in all leading fashion magazines, such as "Marie-Claire", "Elle", or "Vogue". Today, Sarah Moon is one of the best-known fashion photographers. However, her poetical, sometimes dream-like imagery is also present in motives she captures beyond the field of fashion, and, since the nineties, in her movies.

There is a borderland between fiction and truth which seems to be a permanent feature of Sarah Moons works. Poetic as they may be, they always long to reveal a particular form of reality: the fugitiveness of the moment, the boundary between growth and decay, the magic of a single second. "Photography is the soul of all moments, the soul of the very moment you just saw going by", Sarah Moon explains, and invites the beholder to witness the magic of these moments in her atmospheric works. By using the camera, she detaches every motive from its historical anchor: Being decoupled from the present, the pictures often appear strangely antique – or even timeless, like visual anachronisms. At the same time, they are highly intimate, giving the viewer the feeling of peeking through a keyhole.

The artist’s fondness for mystification can be witnessed through the occasionally blurred scenery, which gives the motives a fey or even ghostly aura. Something similar can be observed in her colour photographs, as well: Being sceptical towards the use of colour, Sarah Moon only applies it as means of alienation and exaggeration. When the dazzling chromaticity becomes dark, however, the works’ luscious temper becomes slightly melancholic. Occasionally interspersed spots and blurs cause the impression of nostalgic detachment from the world. Bearing this in mind, it may not come as a surprise that it is Lewis Carroll’s "Alice in Wonderland", Samuel Beckett, and the authors of classical fairytales that are Sarah Moon’s most frequently mentioned inspirational sources.
Paulina Szczesniak

The new edition of Sarah Moons book 12345 is available at the gallery again.

Image: Eva, 1997, 60 x 50 cm

Galerie Persiehl & Heine
Bergstrasse 11 D-20095 Hamburg
Opening hours: Tuesday-Friday 11 am – 6pm, Saturday 11 am – 4 pm

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