Gregory Crewdson. Retrospective

Summary

The speaker reflects on their artistic journey, emphasizing the search for personal truth and beauty in their photography. They explore the blurred lines between reality and fiction, aiming for a timeless, psychological depth in their images. Influenced by their father's psychoanalytic background, the artist delves into human emotions such as longing, sadness, and regret. The photographs are meant to exist in a state of 'in-between,' capturing moments of stillness and revelation, while avoiding contemporary markers to maintain a timeless quality. The exhibition showcases the evolution and consistency of their work over time, revealing an uncanny blend of the familiar and mysterious.

Takeaways

• 🌟 The artist's vision is to capture the beauty of the world in form, detail, light, and atmosphere, reflecting a personal experience and truth.
• 🔍 The artist's photographs are a search for meaning, exploring everyday life to find significance and beauty that can only be hinted at in each image.
• 🎨 The artist aims for a blur between reality and fiction, valuing a personal truth over objective reality in their work.
• 📚 Influenced by a psychoanalyst father, the artist's work often explores psychological themes of longing, sadness, and regret.
• 🔄 The artist is interested in oppositions and tensions, such as truth vs. fiction, nature vs. artifice, and light vs. darkness.
• 🕰 The artist's photographs aim to exist outside of time, avoiding contemporary markers to create a timeless feel.
• 🌌 The artist's work plays with the concept of time, focusing on moments of stillness and emptiness that suggest a narrative between before and after.
• 👨‍🎓 The exhibition showcases the artist's work from their entire career, reflecting changes and consistencies in their core interests.
• 🔮 The artist is fascinated by the uncanny, finding mystery and beauty in the familiar, and exploring themes of fear and desire.
• 🔄 Despite evolving over time, the artist's work remains constant in its exploration of personal psychological themes and motifs.
• 🌆 The artist's photographs are made in twilight, symbolizing the in-between spaces of light and darkness, beginning and end.

Q & A

What is the photographer's vision of the world in terms of their artwork?

The photographer envisions the world as beautiful in form, with a focus on detail, light, atmosphere, and weather, reflecting a personal experience in iconography.

What does the photographer describe as the fundamental level of their photographs?

The photographer describes their photographs as a search for meaning, an attempt to find something significant and beautiful in everyday life.

Why does the photographer believe that any picture can only hint at its exact meaning?

The photographer believes this because the ultimate meaning is always elusive and requires continuous searching and creating of new pictures to approach.

What is the intended blur in the photographer's pictures?

The intended blur is between the real and the fiction, reflecting the photographer's interest in something literary, poetic, and cinematic rather than objective documentation.

What is the photographer's stance on objective truth in photography?

The photographer is not interested in objective truth, instead, they are more interested in expressing personal truth through their photographs.

What types of oppositions and tensions are important in the photographer's work?

Oppositions and tensions such as truth and fiction, nature and artifice, sadness and beauty, normality and paranormality, and light and darkness are important in the photographer's work.

How does the photographer's father's profession influence their work?

The photographer's father was a psychoanalyst, which influences the psychological aspects of the subjects in the photographs, often reflecting a sense of longing, sadness, and regret.

What does the photographer aim to achieve with the sense of separation and detachment in their images?

The photographer aims to create a sense of longing and a psychological image that exists outside of time, disconnected from contemporary life but still reflecting it.

Why does the photographer avoid including contemporary elements like cell phones or cars in their work?

The photographer wants their pictures to exist in a timeless world, avoiding any elements that would date them to a specific moment in time.

How does the photographer describe the narrative of their pictures?

The narrative of the pictures is described as suspended between two moments, focusing on stillness, emptiness, and internal revelation rather than literal narrative.

What does the photographer find constant in their work despite changes over time?

The photographer finds that their core interests and personal themes remain constant, reflecting a psychological sense of fear or desire that is part of who they are.