Gregory Crewdson
Upon reviewing Crewdson's work, an aura of the mystique seems to emanate from each picture. The perspective always seems distant, even if the distance of the subject from the viewer is not that great. Each moment seems uncomfortably silent, and is always set in some American suburban setting. In a number of his outdoor shots, the atmosphere almost makes me feel as if a flying saucer will fly up at any moment and abduct the central figure in the picture. This feeling, in my opinion, is generated by the wideness of the shot, the prominence of the sky, the way the subject always seems to be in an open area and quite alone, and how there always seems to be a light shining from some unknown source onto the subject, while their surroundings are darkened. A picture that is the closest to this supernatural, extraterrestrial kind of presence is the photograph with a concentrated beam of light coming down from the sky at night.
A number of his shots focus on a car that almost always a door ajar and the driver is either missing or standing a short ways away, creating an uneasy atmosphere. I look at these and wonder why they have stopped in the middle of the street and gotten out, or what is so urgent.
The eerieness is also present in his closer and indoor shots, which tend to be even more surreal than the outdoor ones. There is a nude woman in many of the pictures, and in several of them, the central figure is reflected in some way in a mirror or in water. The houses are always dark and often the rooms are spacious and open doors or doorways reveal other rooms, often through several doors aligned into the distance.
Crewdson's photographs are very surreal and ominous and uncomfortable, and the lighting is always very unnatural and bizarre. There is certainly a very mystical and uncertain tone to all of his photographs, and they take suburban America and turn it into a very dangerous, uncertain environment.
Jeff Wall
To describe Jeff Wall's work, at length, would take a very long time, since the subjects and themes are so varied. His work always has some sort of unique curiosity behind it that spawns each photograph. Instead of trying to take on the whole collection of photos I've seen, I will instead choose three and talk about each of them.
"Dead Troops Talk" struck my fancy because of the elaborate staging involved. Wall's own description of it described the black humor involved, the morbid nature of the picture exposed in a irreverantly dark way. The most prominent example is in the center of the shot, where a soldier with his bowels hanging out straddles a soldier with a bloodied face, while another soldier dangles something in front of the bloodied soldier's delighted face. It's hard to see what the object is, but I think it is safe to assume it is either human flesh or food. Other soldiers lie around the shot, some with grevious injuries, yet still looking quite alive, others stone dead. They all seem to be conversing or looking at one another, and it's all very bizarre.
"A Sudden Gust of Wind" is another photograph that interested me because mostly because of the idea. The papers sail up and away, and everything in the foreground is strongly affected by the gust of wind. The trees are leaning, the papers are flying out of the folder, the man's scarf is blown up into his face, covering it completely, two men brace themselves and hold onto their hats, and another man watches, fascinated, as the papers fly higher and higher. The whole scene is just active and amusing.
"The Flooded Grave" is a strange idea. I like the photograph because it is just a curious picture. The angle is strange, the horizon looks as though the setting is in a graveyard on some sphere of land in the sky or something of that nature. The grave itself has all sorts of oceanic life in it, which is very out of place. The whole concept is just very strange and interesting.
Jeff Wall's work is odd, and I do not understand a lot of it, but I think a number of his photographs are very good.
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman I had not heard of until this year, first in my Conceptual Art class, and then later in this class. In Conceptual Art, we were shown some photos from her 69 piece collection, Complete Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), a collection of all black and white photos, where she portrayed herself as an unnamed actress in different movie settings, primarily B-movie, foreign film, and film noir settings. She took the pictures herself, employing the use of a hand held trigger that she would conceal.
She remarked of all of her works, in an interview, that she didn’t see them as self-portraits, and did not see herself when she looked at the pictures.
Sherman’s work is very impersonal. It is far more conceptual in nature. In the collection of film stills, Sherman has stripped herself of her own identity, and creates new identities for herself in these scenes. By doing this, she has effectively removed herself from her own person, which lends to the statement that she does not view these photographs as self-portraits.
Sherman’s work, to me, is rather devoid of any of the artist’s emotions. It’s as though she is both personally and emotionally detached from her work. The only emotion present is whatever is interpreted by the viewer.
