beneath the roses

I'm a bit funny when it comes to exhibitions. I like art a lot, but I didn't study art history or anything, and often don't appreciate the technical points in an artwork. I'm also apt to roll my eyes a bit at most conceptual art; while I absolutely understand creating beauty just to create beauty, I have a generous amount of cynicism, plus all of my favourite books, films, and music go some way toward explaining something about the world - I prefer art that does that. Also, hearing people talk about art in galleries makes me feel a bit nauseous. It's probably not fair, but I feel as if they aren't really there to see things, but to HAVE seen them. Do you know what I mean? For me, art is quite personal. When I hear people talking about it in galleries, they always seem to be showing off what they know about the backstory etc, and never about how the art makes them feel, or what the person they're with thinks. Although I'm very willing to admit that feelings might be for amateurs... and I don't mind. I am an amateur, and feelings are a big part of how I think.

Anyway, that was a very long-winded (and weird) lead in to tell you about the art I saw in Wellington. So much art! It's funny (not really) how much more likely I am to visit a gallery when I'm on holiday. I went to the Colour And Light exhibition at Te Papa, which was very beautiful. I saw photos taken in Samoa by Thomas Andrew around the turn of the 20th century, which were great. I put on 3D glasses and watched an AV presentation called Ghost In The Machine by Sheyne Tuffery, which I really enjoyed. But nothing made an impression on me quite like that of Gregory Crewdson's photographic exhibition Beneath The Roses.

This is what Wellington's City Gallery says about Crewdson's work:

"Gregory Crewdson’s photographs come from the dark heart of contemporary Americana, belonging to a cultural lineage that stretches from Edward Hopper to David Lynch, by way of Flannery O’Connor and Alfred Hitchcock. Working like a film director, Crewdson creates elaborate scenarios either on location or sound stages, using sets, actors, and full production crews, all in search of a perfect ‘moment of grace’. This search sometimes  involves  closing down entire streets, using snow machines, and always shooting at twilight, when expansive lighting set ups can most effectively cast the beams of light that transform the mundane and vernacular into the mysterious and often transcendent. In his work the setting becomes part backdrop, part character, the site for highly-charged dramas that locate the alienated individual within or against a landscape as pressingly psychological as it is physical."

Each scene, which is carefully set up either on location or on a soundstage, is shot about fifty times. Each time, the focus is changed ever so slightly, so that when Crewdson goes to put the pictures together, he has fifty options to layer together to create the final work. His aim is to create something seamless and photographic without photographic limitations of blurring, or grain, or anything out of focus. The result is incredible; at first, you don't really know what you're looking at. You start from far away, and are immediately struck by this overwhelming sense of foreboding. Then, as you move closer, it's as if you really are walking towards the scene. You'll notice shapes in the shadows, figures in the smoke, and detail in windows pop out at you exactly as they would if you were there on the street. The feeling is so strong, you start to believe you can smell the air, and you feel the cold of the pending darkness (all of the pictures are taken at dusk). One picture made me turn away to protect my nose before I realised. The hyperrealism of each shot makes it feel so personal that you at once feel part of it and an intruder. You feel bad for looking into a motel room at a naked woman, but you also can't turn away because you're in it. I don't know that I've ever looked at art and felt that way before.

The exhibition is at City Gallery Wellington, and then comes to Dunedin Public Art Gallery (hurray!). If you'd like to see and read more about Crewdson's work, there's a good interview with him here, as well as sketched plans and details about the shoots. And here is a picture from the exhibition, 'Untitled (Maple Street)', 2003.