Six feet under

Gregrory Crewdson is known widely both as an artist and as a lecturer in the photography department at the Yale University. But not many people know that he did a commercial assignment for HBO as well. Apparently it was his first one ever.

He shot a poster that was later used for promotion of third season of the highly acclaimed TV series called "Six feet under". One of the vice presidents of marketing at HBO saw Crewdson’s series "Twilight" at his exhibition in Guggenheim and hired him for the job. The isolation, alienation and tension she found in his work, played very well with the tone of the TV series.

I only found out recently that my favourite poster from "Six feet under" was done be Gregory Crewdson himself. For all these years I’ve thought that somebody who had done it was just inspired by Crewdson’s images.

Anyhow, the print was done in famous printing studio Laumont in New York. If you have any high quality prints to be done, I guess that’s the place to go to.

Weak tea

I came across a critical article on Crewdson’s series “Twilight” in Artforum magazine. The author, David Frankel, calls Crewdson’s work a disappointingly weak tea. 

He believes that Crewdson settles down with the special effect by itself, he doesn’t go behind it. In opposition to Steven Spielberg who in for example Close Encounters used special effects only to portray the clutter of an average suburban family life. According to Frankel Crewdson’s images only look like films stills but don’t go beyond that. As any film director Crewdson creates and oversees thousands of images to fill the proverbial 90 minutes (length of a typical motion picture), but still manages to make a mediocre movie.

There is no doubt that Crewdson’s work is deeply soaked in popular culture and specifically American mainstream cinema representation of suburban life. However does he really make a mediocre movie over and over again? I don't think he does. He draws sketches for viewers based on his (our) culture and leaves the viewers free to interpret his work according to their knowledge, awareness. I believe there’s more to his images than just special effects, do you?

Let me take your photo

Before receiving his BA degree from the State University of New York at Purchase in 1985 and an M.F.A. in photography from Yale University in 1988, Gregory Crewdson played in a rock and roll band called The Speedies.

Gregory Crewdson - first on the left

The band was formed when Crewdson was 16. He played rhythm guitar and wrote and co-wrote many of the band's songs. They're known for wearing hideous Italian designers of that time just for the fun of it.

The title of their first single was "Let me take your photo". Isn't that an irony? Well, the song was actually about how to get chicks. If you dare, have a look at their video.


THE SPEEDIES - LET ME TAKE YOUR PHOTO

The Speedies | Myspace Music Videos

If you feel like you can take more, here's the video from their reunion gig in 2007 at the Power Pop Festival.

Genius of photography

See first part of the "Snap Judgements" episode of the BBC series Genius of Photography presenting among others a footage of Crewdson's photo shoot.

Dilapidation

Sarah Croft, who's a location manager for the photo shoots, says that Crewdson is drawn to places whose beauty is their age, their scars and dilapidation (ruin), places that imply their past but don't exclaim the history.

Her work starts 4-6 weeks before the actual photo-shoot. She does initial scouting with Gregory Crewdson and then compiles a list of requests to be discussed with local authorities, such as mayor's office, police and fire department, electric company and department of public work. Then with two assistants she talks to literally everybody at the location, discussing issues like where to place lifts, put lights in peoples houses and businesses, as well as relocating cars for the photo shoot.

As it involves cooperation with various different people, it can get intense sometimes, she says. She is the connection between the art world and the reality, explaining to the local residents why Crewdson wants to photograph a neighbour driven by or why he wouldn't shoot his photos in a more pretty part of town. Tracking down and working with residents, property and business owners brings her close to their lives. Like a detective you find out things, some good, some bad, some incriminating. It seems like reliving the photos from Gregory Crewdson's imagination to some extent.

If you want to read more about producing Crewdson's photo shoot, have a look at Aperture website dedicated to him.

Action!

Just came across this amateur video from one of Gregory Crewdson's photo shoot. The quality isn't great, but it gives you an idea of how many people are involved in each of his cinematic projects.

Too much Spielberg

Crewdson's interest in narrative photography brought him close to cinematic photography. While for many it is the most interesting part of his work, his critics describe it as a flaw. He's often being compared by them to Steven Spielberg of photography. I'm not the biggest fan of latest movies by Spielberg, however neither I or anybody else can ignore his impact on cinema. Hence I don't necessarily agree with this accusation towards Crewdson's work. I don't think he simply reproduces popular culture but re-interpret it. As many others postmodern artists his work is both based and influenced by pop culture and film genre.

Just in case you haven't seen any of Spielberg's movies, here's the special edition trailer for Close encounters of the third kind from 1977 which is often mentioned in relation to Crewdson's work.

Technicality

When looking at the final photograph, you usually focus on things like: do I like it or not, is it good or not, is it art or not, etc. With Gregory Crewdson’s photographs you might find yourself wondering how the heck did he put that all together? Well, as his images are often described as cinematic ones, they in fact require a film crew (usually around 20-40 people of different professions) and lots of preparation upfront.  

With the Ophelia photograph, one of the issues was that the model was in a pool of water together with electrical objects. The cooperation with an electrician was necessary. The other thing was the weight of the water itself. Gregory Crewdson wanted to have 90 cm of water on the set, but he was told that the stage could not take that amount and would simply collapse. The production designer suggested designing a room where everything is 54 cm lower than normal and this way creating an illusion of deeper water. Another thing with water was to heat it. They’ve installed water heaters but left them on too long and the fire started just when the model arrived!

Luckily it was extinguished quickly enough so the photo shoot could carry on. There were two versions of this photograph shot. One, when she was “just about to submerge herself into the water -- the moment before the moment. That was very beautiful. Then I said, 'Well, let's try the other one.' But we were running out of time -- we had to be done by 5 o'clock -- and the water was now freezing. So I said, 'Let's just not do it.' But the model was suddenly determined. When she was in the water, looking up at us, I knew that this was the right picture. The fact that there was anxiety on the set that we were running out of time, that there was a fire the night before, that the water was freezing -- all of that, I think, fueled the resulting image. It's beautiful and haunting. It's perfect.” (Interview by Nelson Hancock)

Ophelia

The pre-Raphaelite painting by Sir John Everett Millais is a well known across the world representation of Ophelia. It has inspired many painters and even at least one photographer. Gregory Crewdson’s interpretation of it is part of his series “Twilight”.  

Gregory Crewdson describes his inspirations for this image:  “this is a woman who has been living in this house her entire life and who has led, up to this point, an everyday existence. She comes down the stairs, and her living room is flooded. She just accepts the situation and submerges herself in the water. That's why the slippers are on the stairs and her robe is on the bannister. I see this as a cathartic event, something both beautiful and sad.”

As always lots of attention was paid to each single detail in the final image. The things you often take for granted while watching his photographs involved lots of work from different groups of people living nearby the shooting location, i.e. NorthAdams, MA.

For example, the curtains were donated by Country Curtains, the pictures on the wall were donated by a local wedding photographer, furniture and books were donated by Goodwill. If you look close enough you will notice that the book on the table is titled “Deep Harbor”. 

That’s actually the thing that draws me the most to his work, you need to look closer and not just glimpse at it to really see all of it.

 

Freud and Crewdson

It is emphasised that Gregory Crewdson’s father, and to be more precise his profession, has had a strong impact on Gregory Crewdson’s photographs.

His father was a psychoanalyst. He used to meet with his patients in the basement of their family home in Brooklyn. The future photographer would press his ear to the wooden floor and try to listen to his father’s therapy sessions.

Even though he says now he couldn’t really hear anything, it has still influenced him. He was projecting images in his mind into the patients’ histories. Gregory Crewdson calls it his “first photographic act”. He mentions as well that his father is “the most central person” in his work.

These influences are both visible in his earlier surreal images of birds inhabiting the rear gardens or farms with their own rituals as in the later cinematic works.

 

The motif of people driven by their fears and obsessions, or sometimes caught in the middle of some nightmare comes back in all of the cinematic images from Twilight and Beneath the Roses series.

 

Twilight series 1999

5 photos in 5 weeks

Gregory Crewdson's images are highly staged. There is no dubt about that. They are often described as being cinematic. And the truth is that the time spend on creating them is similar to shooting of a movie (sic!). As Gregory Crewdson says himself it takes 5 weeks work on a set to produce 5-6 images! If you can't believe it, see the below interview.

Sanctuary

An exhibition of latest work by Gregory Crewdson called Sanctuary is to open on 24th of November in White Cube in London.
Unlike his recent works, this project is without people. It shows 41 black and white photographs taken in Cinecittà film studios in Rome.
As it says on the Gagosian Gallery website "he has captured the palpable atmospheres of melancholy lurking at every twist and turn, cloaked in shadow or suddenly illuminated by a shaft of daylight."

Though I get the melancholy, I'm not sure these images have the same impact on me as the previous cinematic ones. They seem ordinary at a first glance. It's like you can find many similar ones on Flickr. Maybe I just need to sleep on this. See how they look tomorrow early morning.



Auction

If you have some spare cash laying around, you might be interested to know that few works of Gregory Crewdson will be on sale on 9th of November. For more details see artnet

That disturbing feeling

Have a look at few works by Gregory Crewdson below. I love the way his work doesn't leave you indifferent. It's open to many interpretations. The narrative in each photograph reminds you of a movie rather than an alone still image.

 

On the technical side, the way he operates light is amazing. It must be around 100 different light sources used in each one of them.

 

American neighbourhood

When you hear the above term, what comes to your mind? I bet a lot of scenes taken out from various American movies you've watched over the years. For me it's either some nearly deserted remote village in the mid-west ("Brokeback Mountain" or Coen Brothers style) or the estate from "Poltergeist", fresh from the factory, like a movie set.


For some reason these sceneries are always nearly empty in me head. Houses but with no or very few people. Like in Hopper's pictures. That must be the reason why I'm so drawn to Gregory Crewdson images. I can't get them out of my head. They're constant point of reference for me.


The alienation in them. The surrealism in everyday location. The mystery. The multiply possible interpretation. Plus very often the twilight or night scenery. I just can't get them out of my head!