Philip-Lorca diCorcia
dal 29/11/2006 al 26/1/2007
Segnalato da
Monika Spruth Philomene Magers
29/11/2006
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Monika Spruth Philomene Magers, Munich
Early Works
Early Works
Monika Spruth Philomene Magers are pleased to present early works from the Family
and Friends series by Philip-Lorca diCorcia.
The New York artist Philip-Lorca diCorcia takes photographs that operate between the
documentary tradition and the staged superficial images of film and advertising.
In the late 1970s diCorcia began his series Family and Friends, taking photographs
of friends and family members in deliberately staged settings and poses. He shows
these people in seemingly banal everyday situations that on one level make the
photos look like snapshots. Scenes like these are familiar, and yet it is hard to
turn away from the pictures. The staging is so accomplished and finely planned,
right down to the last detail, that it compels us to linger, and to consider the
emotional and psychological meaning behind what seems to be just everyday. Typically
for diCorcia's work, a combination of natural and strategically employed artificial
light lends the photos a remarkable sense of theatre. The light seems to lift the
subject of the photo to a plane beyond the everyday situation. As it explores the
surface of what is presented, it turns the scene into a stage, resembling a film
still that the viewer can only really understand in terms of the whole plot - only
there is no such plot.
The protagonists of these pictures seem caught in a freeze-frame, and the world
around them has come to a standstill. A familiar situation suddenly appears unreal,
because the artist has somehow stopped time and revealed the actual complexity of
the scene. We cannot help sensing that something special is happening here, but what
that might be remains obscure. This forces us to develop narrative strategies that
examine the limits of the frozen scenes and attempt to come up with some kind of
storyline. The way the scenes are staged makes the action all the more direct and
therefore also confronts us with their banality, and with the private nature of the
moment captured - and ultimately with the ever-recurring moments of our own everyday
lives. Philip-Lorca diCorcia successfully stages the surface to guide our attention
to what lies beneath it, and we end up wondering about ourselves.
Born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut, diCorcia graduated from the Boston School of
the Museum of Fine Arts. He received his Master of Fine Arts in photography at Yale
University. From the late 1970s he has had numerous solo and group shows, including
at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Photographer's Gallery, London, and most
recently the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, and the Art Institute, Chicago. His
works are included in many international collections.
Image: Logan, 2004, Pole Dancers Ed.of 8. Fuji crystal archive print mounted on Dibond 67 x 46 in
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