(
'.
이따금 CC티비를 보고 있으면, 있는 그대로의 현실을 반영한 이미지란 것이
얼마나 비현실적인가를 목도하게 된다.
일정의 사실을 밝히는 일은 조작할 때만
가능할 수도 있음을.
.'
)
+ + +
Ike Cole; 38 years old; Los Angeles, California; $25
Ektacolor print 107 x 167,5 cmEd 20.ex
Juliet Ms. Muse, 2004
Fujicolor Crystal Archive print mounted to Dibond 170 x 118,7cm Ed 8 ex.
Harvest Moon, 2004
Fujicolor Crystal Archive print mounted to Dibond 170 x 118,7cm Ed 8 ex.
Head #6, 2000 PL.192
Fujicolor Crystal Archoval print mounted to plexi 122 x 152,5cm Ed. 10ex.
Japan 1994
Ektacolor print 64,5 x 95,5cm. Ed. 15ex.
W, March 2000
Fujicolor Crystal Archive print mounted to plexi 122 x 152,5cm Ed 15 ex.
Street Work
DiCorcia (1953) photographed the street life in eight big American, European and Asian cities between 1996 and 1998. On the pavement he placed hidden lights, which lit up passers-by in a special way. His photos elevate the accidental poses, the unintended movements and insignificant facial expressions of the passers-by into a certain meaning. The scenes are like stills from a film on daily life, the city acting as decor. DiCorcia is a photographer who shows life's dilemmas in a metropolis: isolated individuals disappearing into the masses. His photos lift a few out of the crowd. However, by using the city's name as the title of the photo he places the passers-by back into the city's anonymity.
Photographer's Spotlight
Upon viewing Philip-Lorca
diCorcia's photographs, you may think if you had been there at that moment, you
could have taken the same photo. His photographs are ordinary yet abduct the
viewer's imagination. Looking at one his images, we are encouraged to make up
our own stories. Though the photos look simple to take, in reality each scene
has been well choreographed by diCorcia long before the shutter has been
clicked.
"Berlin" by Philip-Lorca
DiCorcia.
Courtesy Pace WildsteinMacGrill
"Photography is a foreign language
everyone thinks he speaks," once commented diCorcia. The Yale-educated
photographer has a cinematic approach to photography. Just as a film director
must focus his or her attention on a critical scene, diCorcia takes many
Polaroid test shots before taking the final photograph. He is also well known
for his use of mixing artificial and natural light in his images in a
distinctive way. His photographs are not candids.
He developed an interest in photography while he was attending the University
of Hartford in the early 1970s. A couple years later he transferred to the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and graduated in 1975. He continued his education
at Yale where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography in
1979. He wrote his thesis on two styles of filmmaking--the unseen world vs. the
closed world.
After graduating from Yale, diCorcia continued making photographs but wasn't
sure how he would transform this hobby of his into a lucrative career so he
hopped a jet to the land of La-La, Los Angeles, to see if he could find a job in
the film industry. After giving up on that career path, he returned to New York
City and found a job working as an assistant to professional photographers. As
is the case with many assistants, he learned about the techniques used in
commercial photography. By 1984, diCorcia was making his living as a freelance
photographer, taking photos for Fortune, Esquire, and later some Condé
Nast publications - every travel photographer's dream.
The National Endowments for the Arts awarded diCorcia with an artist's
fellowship in 1989. At the time, the NEA was under attack for representing the
controversial nude photography of Robert Maplethorpe. Remember how in the midst
of the AIDS crisis right wing Senator Jesse Helms accused Maplethorpe's photos
of explicit homosexuality as being obscene? Many photographers banded together
in support of Maplethorpe's artistic freedom and First Amendment right!
|
"Los Angeles" by
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia.
Courtesy Pace WildsteinMacGrill
 The NEA became cautious about
limiting the work toward which its grant awards money could be spent. Therefore,
as part of the fellowship contract diCorcia had to sign on a dotted line
promising that the work he produced during the fellowship would not be obscene.
During the next two years, he traveled to Los Angeles repeatedly. With an
assistant to help him with his time consuming set-up of each shot, he frequented
a seedy section of Santa Monica Boulevard in search of interesting subjects to
photograph. |
"Gerald Hughs (aka Savage
Fantasy)"" by Philip-Lorca DiCorcia.
Courtesy Pace
WildsteinMacGrill
As we can see from this selection from his
Hollywood series, the people in the shadows of the Hollywood glitz are just as
interesting as the ones decorating Universal Studios parking lot. The images
from his series on Hollywood drifters are gloomy and bewitching. DiCorcia asked
each model for his age, hometown, and modeling fee. No doubt, he was quite
gleeful about paying his models who were drifters, prostitutes, and runaways
with his NEA stash. The information in the caption reads like a quirky epitaph.
See Gerald Hughes (a.k.a Savage Fantasy); about 25 years old; Southern
California; $50.
In the late 1970s, diCorcia began to explore and discover his artistic style
while taking photographs of his friends and family as in this photo of his
brother Mario standing in front of the fridge--forlorn and disillusioned.
"Mario" by Philip-Lorca
DiCorcia.
Courtesy Pace WildsteinMacGrill
No matter how many times we stare into the lonely eyes of a fridge at midnight,
there never seems to be anything good to eat--Swiss cheese, Maraschino cherries,
PAM, and Dole fruit juice. The scene looks improvised yet diCorcia has arranged
the props with strategically placed electronic flashes inside the fridge. Mario
was very patient as his brother made him re-enact this moment repeatedly to
capture a moment of dull reality.
Taking a cinematic approach to
photography, diCorcia can spend long tedious hours setting up for one shot that
he has imagined in his head. Instead of striving to accumulate a large body of
work, he focused his creative energy on printing around twelve or so
masterpieces a year.
|
"Bruce and Ronnie" by
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia.
Courtesy Pace WildsteinMacGrill
 |
"Ralph Smith" by
Philip-Lorca DiCorcia.
Courtesy Pace WildsteinMacGrill
 |
Whether we see a bedroom still life like
Bruce and Ronnie 1982 or Ralph Smith; 21 years old; Ft, Lauderdale, Florida
$25, the viewer feels privy to secrets he doesn't quite know yet. "The more
specific the interpretation suggested by a picture," says diCorcia, "the less
happy I am with it," said diCorcia.
What can we learn from studying
diCorcia's work? Well, by visualizing a portrait so well in advance and planning
every detail, you must become aware of every nuance. Notice the kitschy props
and background? For example, the token hermetically sealed plastic cups in the
bare motel room, the chained television set tuned to an old Bill Cosby show, the
optimistic gleam of the Del Taco sign.
The items are important to
diCorcia's work. "They enclose the figure in a field of psychological force,
lending diCorcia's photographic frame a voyeuristic urgency, as if the unseen
viewer, possessing secret knowledge, is in the process of unraveling a mystery,"
wrote Peter Galassi in "Contemporaries: Philip-Lorca diCorcia" published by The
Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Visit these links to view diCorcia's
arresting photographs:
http://travel.epicurious.com/travel/g_cnt/06_gallery/europe/italy/sicily/intro.html
http://artscenecal.com
http://fiac.reed-oip.fr/fiac98/exposants/janssen/indexgb.html | |
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