Club Series encompasses two photographic
projects taken at The Ministry
of Sound nightclub in London over a three-month period. Although
ideas inevitably overlapped, such as the areas of truth and reality in
relation to
the documented image, the photographers worked separately and the two
resulting series maintain their own distinct identities.
Club Series was initiated by Lucy Levene in 2004
during her MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art
and refers to texts written by the philosopher Denis Diderot
between 1759 and 1781 about the methods in
which an artist can persuade an audience of his paintings' truthfulness
through making his subject appear absorbed in concentration. He
believed that the more convinced we (as viewers) are that the subject
is not aware of being beheld, the more convincing the illusion of 'reality'.
Looking at how contemporary artists such as Jeff Wall and
Philip-Lorca
Di Corcia use construction within their work to create these absorptive
qualities - producing images that tend towards the pictorial unity and
resonence of 19th century Realism represented by painters such as Courbet
- Levene "wanted to further explore the duality between the staged
tableaux and the 'documentary' photographic image. Could the pictorial
unity and resonance of 19th century Realism be conveyed within unstaged
photographic images?"
Goldblatt's images use the implied narrative inherent within
clubgoers' transitory moments of separation and connection
to represent a generation
for whom fantasy is an essential component of life. Her images
combine long exposures and available light, producing a saturated, glowing
palette that
is simultaneously seductive and repellent and echoes the sense of fantasy
provided by the setting. An array of self-absorbed individuals
inhabit the images, engaged in activities that isolate them from their
surroundings.
They are a group of people occupying a space designed to reject reality
and the work draws on the peculiar blend of fantasy, desire and anonymity
that exists within the urban world, particularly in its nocturnal form.
Lydia Goldblatt is currently studying for her MA at the
University of Arts London. She has received commissions
by the Guardian Weekend Magazine and by international brands
such as Pepsi, Guinness, Renault and Citroen.
She is represented by the Millennium Agency in the UK.
Lucy Levene's work has been exhibited in the UK, Europe
and the United States and has featured in a range of publications.
Her work has been selected for the touring exhibition and
Thames and Hudson publication 'ReGeneration: 50 Photographers
of Tomorrow, 2005-2025'. The exhibition is currently at the
Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne (23 June - 23
October 2005) and will travel
to Aperture Magazine's new gallery space in New York in 2006.
She is represented in the USA by 511 Gallery, New York. |
