April 2015, Brattleboro, Vermont — Thursday, April 30 an opening reception for an exhibit of acclaimed photographer, Amy Arbus, will be held from from 5 – 8pm at Mitchell • GIddings FIne Arts at 183 Main Street, Brattleboro.
The exhibit, After Images, will run from April 30 to May 24 and is a series Arbus made in 2011 and 2012 to payhomage to her favorite painters such as Balthus, Cezanne, David, Ingres, Modigliani and Picasso. The images will seem familiar to most viewers. They are photographs of live scenes staged to replicate the powerful effects of original paintings from the early 20th century, Arbus’s team painted costumes, props, and the models themselves. What has materialized is a series of hybrid images that challenges the thin line between painting and art photography.
“Initially I had no idea how to actually produce these pictures.” says Amy Arbus in her artist statement, “I studied the portrait paintings, organized a team, and began experimenting by photographing actors and dancers. My biggest challenges were how to create extremely soft lighting, skewed perspectives, Picasso’s elongated fingers and Modigliani’s incredibly long necks.”
“Amy Arbus…leaps right into the age-old tussle between paintings and photography by audaciously re-staging for her camera some of modernism’s most iconic avant-garde portraits. Her astonishing and pitch-perfect pictures say as much about the sweetly treasured past of paintings as they do about the unpredictably hybrid future of photography.”
–Brian Wallis, Chief Curator, International Center of Photography
A book signing of After Images and an artist talk will be held on Saturday, May 2 from 5 – 7pm.
Amy Arbus has had 25 solo exhibitions worldwide and published five books including the award winning On The Street 1980-1990. Hilton Als in The New Yorker described The Fourth Wall as her masterpiece. Her photographs have appeared in and on the covers of periodicals such as The Village Voice, The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg News, French Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, People, New York Magazine, and Aperture. Advertising clients include Chiat/Day, Cone and Belding, Saatchi & Saatchi, New Line Cinema, Nickelodeon, and Marina Rinaldi. Arbus has been teaching portraiture at the International Center for Photography for 20 years and at Anderson Ranch and NORDphotography. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The New York Public Library; The National Theater, Oslo, Norway; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; The Richard Avedon Foundation, New York.
Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is a distinctive gallery located in Brattleboro, Vermont, in the heart of the Connecticut River Valley. MGFA specializes in contemporary fine arts and craft in a variety of media by regionally and nationally recognized artists.
The gallery is located at 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont. Open Wednesday through Sunday from 11-5 pm,
MGFA’s distinctive gallery space is home to rotating exhibits of contemporary fine art and craft.
Contact: Petria Mitchell, Co-Director (petria@sover.net)
Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts
183 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301
mailing: PO Box 2125
W Brattleboro, VT 05303
(802) 251-8290
info@mitchellgiddingsfinearts.com
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Cool
After Images sounds like a great project – to undertake and to have on display.
I’ve read articles in computer imaging trade magazines about other artists who have tried, at great length, to recreate certain old images and the corresponding perspective, and it isn’t easy. It looks like her team had to resort to quite a few tricks of the trade to make it work.