Beneath the Roses: Photographs by Gregory Crewdson

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I didn’t start taking pictures until I was in college. I had a crush on a girl who was photo major, and followed her into a photography class. My Photography teacher was Laurie Simmons, and my crush went from the girl to my teacher. As soon as I took my first pictures, my crush shifted from the teacher to photography. Gregory Crewdson Schwiegershausen, Erica (July 19, 2016). "How Gregory Crewdson Spends His Summer". The New York Times.

Contemporary American Photography 1970-2000, From the Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, Korea The middle-aged women in these photographs often have the hairstyles and hardened faces of the women in Edward Hopper's later paintings. Hopper, one of Crewdson's heroes, managed infinitely more with very much less. Hopper's paintings were so stripped down to the essentials that they left more to the imagination; even the way he painted sunlight climbing the wall in a room tells us everything we need to know about time passing, futility and loneliness. Crewdson, by contrast, overloads many of his scenes. If a woman doesn't seem quite unhappy enough in a room, then throw a few antidepressants and slimming pills around the bedside table to reinforce the point, and give the room an overflowing ashtray. In America, only the fraught, the foolhardy and the neurotic smoke. It proves they're not living right. Photography Portfolio I & II, Paula Cooper, Carolina Nitsch & The Merce Cunningham Dace Co., Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA 2006 Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (solo) 2005 Gregory Crewdson: 1985-2005, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany (solo)

Kroll, Justin (October 26, 2017). "Scarlett Johansson in Talks to Star in Focus Drama 'Reflective Light' ". Gregory, Crewdson. "Aesthetics of Alienation". Tate Etc. Archived from the original on June 8, 2011 . Retrieved March 19, 2011. Beneath the Roses was an exhibition of twenty new large-scale photographs by Gregory Crewdson. In these pointedly theatrical yet intensely real panoramic images, Crewdson explores the recesses of the American psyche and the disturbing dramas at play within quotidian environments. Despite the large scope of his productions, Crewdson’s carefully composed scenes and controlled lighting recall the intricate arrangements of early still life photography.

Mechling, Lauren (October 28, 2022). "Inside a Brooklyn Apartment Where the Walls Talk". Town and Country. This body of photographs concludes Crewdson's Beneath the Roses series, the entirety of which is being published in a book by Harry N. Abrams in conjunction with this exhibition. Gregory Crewdson’s Beneath the Roses is considered among the most renowned bodies of work from an artist who has made a career of producing cinematic photographs. A master of the somber and psychological, Crewdson’s large-scale and intricately crafted tableaus leverage the believability of photographs against the fantasy of his subject matter, charting distinctive paths of storytelling through still images. The resulting works portray a world that feels near while simultaneously formalizing collective anxieties within the context of banal American life. Luhring Augustine is pleased to present Beneath the Roses, an exhibition of 20 new large-scale photographs by Gregory Crewdson. In these pointedly theatrical yet intensely real panoramic images, Crewdson explores the recesses of the American psyche and the disturbing dramas at play within quotidian environments. But it is the series Beneath the Roses (2003-2008) that has made Crewdson truly famous. Shot using a large format camera, Crewdson makes large-scale photographs of elaborate and meticulously staged tableaux, which have been described as “micro-epics” that probe the dark corners of the psyche. Working in the manner of a film director, he leads a production crew, which includes a director of photography, special effects and lighting teams, casting director and actors. He typically makes several exposures that he later digitally combines to produce the final image. Photographs in the series of “brief encounters” include external dioramas (shot in a down at heel Western Massachusetts town), where Crewdson shuts down streets and lights the whole scene; to interior dialogues where houses are built on sound stages and the artist can control every detail of the production. Influences on these works include, but are not limited to:Duane Hanson (1925-1996) is one of the most influential American sculptors of the 20th century committed to Realism. In his images, Crewdson reworks the American suburb into a stage-set for inexplicable, often disturbing, events that usually take place at twilight. Working on an epic scale, Crewdson has developed a process akin to the making of a feature film to create what he calls ‘frozen moments’, with the help of a large crew to shoot and then develop the images in post-production. Festival and exhibitions: ‘What Makes Us Human? Image in the Age of A.I.’ at the PhotoVogue Festival, BASE Milano,Milan Crewdson's most widely-known bodies of work include Twilight (1998–2002), Beneath the Roses (2003–2008), Cathedral of the Pines (2013–2014) and An Eclipse of Moths. [19] Crewdson's only body of work made outside of the U.S. was Sanctuary (2009), set at the abandoned Cinecittá studios outside of Rome. [20] Nearly all of his other work before and since was made in the small towns and cities in Western Massachusetts. [21]