Gregory Crewdson was born in the USA in 1962 and grew up in a quiet family environment with his parents and siblings in Park Slope NY, oneof Brooklyn's most famous neighbourhoods. He studied at the State University of New York at Purchase College and graduated in 1988 with a master’s in photography from Yale University. He has been a member of the faculty since 1993 and is currently Director of Postgraduate Studies in Photography.
Gregory Crewdson is known for mysterious images of suburban life, raising issues that seem to have no answers, as if taken from an ambiguous and mysterious dream, where beauty, estrangement, sadness and desire are the dominant emotions. He uses Hollywood cinematic techniques and elaborate sets, creating “frozen moments”. These single-frame movies, as Crewdson calls them, are akin to some aspects of filmmaking: the technological machinery and human resources involved in the production and staging of this near-perfect world take on Hollywoodesque dimensions; the bright, saturated colours of the images suggest the memory of Technicolor cinema of the 1950s. Crewdson's favourite twilight setting works as a metaphor, a strange evocation of the darkness at the edge of the city. Crewdson has cited Steven Spielberg, Diane Arbus and Edward Hopper as influences on his work.
The 12 photographs from the “Dream House” series, on display here, belong to the novobanco Collection, and were all produced inside and outside a house in the suburbs of Rutland, Vermont. Gregory Crewdson discovered this uninhabited house a few years ago, after its owner passed away, with all the decorative and functional elements that made it a home still in place, using it as a stage to create a portfolio for the New York Times.
To create this series, he worked with a team of some twenty technicians, including assistant directors, producers, set designers, electricians, lighting technicians and the director of photography, Rick Sands, who he considers to be his right-hand man. It is interesting that a photographer should have a director of photography working for him; however, the magnitude of a production of this type of image turns Crewdson into a director whose role it is to organise and control a team in the careful construction of his fictions and adds another key factor in conjuring film when he hires Hollywood stars to appear in his staged photographs: Tilda Swinton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Gwyneth Paltrow, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, Dylan Baker and Becky Ann Baker were the chosen actors who agreed to participate in the representation of domestic and family routines in this photographic melodrama, intended to invert their celebrity image and explore the themes of sexual desire, personal obsession and social alienation.
Gregory Crewdson’s “Dream House” series is one of the best known. The photographs depict idyllic suburban settings with mysterious, disturbing details, portraying the surreal with a very real and unsettling view of the typical suburban family. This voyeuristic combination can make the viewer feel uncomfortable, perhaps because the images are strangely familiar to a memory or a dream.
The faces of the subjects seem absent, the characters’ expressions are minimal and rarely suggest any movement, as if they were statues, bodies devoid of emotion, tuned in to the weird fantasy like flowers emerging from the boot of a car or a garage covered in moss — this is what Crewdson's photographs are all about. His interest in the dark side of "wholesome American life" is reminiscent of David Lynch's films.
Curatorship_Alexandra Conde
Praça Marques de Pombal n. 3A 1250-161 Lisbon Portugal DD/MM/YYYY true
Gregory Crewdson was born in the USA in 1962 and grew up in a quiet family environment with his parents and siblings in Park Slope NY, oneof Brooklyn's most famous neighbourhoods. He studied at the State University of New York at Purchase College and graduated in 1988 with a master’s in photography from Yale University. He has been a member of the faculty since 1993 and is currently Director of Postgraduate Studies in Photography.
Gregory Crewdson is known for mysterious images of suburban life, raising issues that seem to have no answers, as if taken from an ambiguous and mysterious dream, where beauty, estrangement, sadness and desire are the dominant emotions. He uses Hollywood cinematic techniques and elaborate sets, creating “frozen moments”. These single-frame movies, as Crewdson calls them, are akin to some aspects of filmmaking: the technological machinery and human resources involved in the production and staging of this near-perfect world take on Hollywoodesque dimensions; the bright, saturated colours of the images suggest the memory of Technicolor cinema of the 1950s. Crewdson's favourite twilight setting works as a metaphor, a strange evocation of the darkness at the edge of the city. Crewdson has cited Steven Spielberg, Diane Arbus and Edward Hopper as influences on his work.
The 12 photographs from the “Dream House” series, on display here, belong to the novobanco Collection, and were all produced inside and outside a house in the suburbs of Rutland, Vermont. Gregory Crewdson discovered this uninhabited house a few years ago, after its owner passed away, with all the decorative and functional elements that made it a home still in place, using it as a stage to create a portfolio for the New York Times.
To create this series, he worked with a team of some twenty technicians, including assistant directors, producers, set designers, electricians, lighting technicians and the director of photography, Rick Sands, who he considers to be his right-hand man. It is interesting that a photographer should have a director of photography working for him; however, the magnitude of a production of this type of image turns Crewdson into a director whose role it is to organise and control a team in the careful construction of his fictions and adds another key factor in conjuring film when he hires Hollywood stars to appear in his staged photographs: Tilda Swinton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Gwyneth Paltrow, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, Dylan Baker and Becky Ann Baker were the chosen actors who agreed to participate in the representation of domestic and family routines in this photographic melodrama, intended to invert their celebrity image and explore the themes of sexual desire, personal obsession and social alienation.
Gregory Crewdson’s “Dream House” series is one of the best known. The photographs depict idyllic suburban settings with mysterious, disturbing details, portraying the surreal with a very real and unsettling view of the typical suburban family. This voyeuristic combination can make the viewer feel uncomfortable, perhaps because the images are strangely familiar to a memory or a dream.
The faces of the subjects seem absent, the characters’ expressions are minimal and rarely suggest any movement, as if they were statues, bodies devoid of emotion, tuned in to the weird fantasy like flowers emerging from the boot of a car or a garage covered in moss — this is what Crewdson's photographs are all about. His interest in the dark side of "wholesome American life" is reminiscent of David Lynch's films.
Curatorship_Alexandra Conde
1250-161 Lisbon, Portugal