Gerald Hughes, a.k.a. Savage Fantasy’; about 25 years old
- Photography (Photography)
50 x 63 cm
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
For this series, Philip-Lorca diCorcia walked along Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles in search of models who would be prepared to pose in hotel rooms according to pre- planned scenarios. The artist explained that: “I went back to the street just like the ordinary clients of these prostitutes. I went up to them and mentioned the following: ‘I would like to take a photo of you, I will pay you exactly what you are paid for a pass’”. Gerald Hughes (a.k.a. Savage Fantasy); about 25 years old; Southern California; $50: first name, surname, age, place, tariff. This descriptive title makes manifest the heightened awareness of the recording parameters and the nature of the photographic act. DiCorcia refers to Hollywood cinema in his choice of construction in planes. The composition – rather like a montage – creates an encounter between a prostitute and a TV presenter via interlocking frames (door, mirror, television, the framing of the photograph). The fixity of this face to face confronts intimate and social spheres. A certain engagement and a political dimension appear in the work, particularly if one takes into account that the series was executed with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in a context in which American politics were conservative. The artist constructs “a desperate fantasy of Hollywood world” (Peter Galassi) with this ‘hiatus’ image between dream land and uncomfortable reality.
The works of Philip-Lorca diCorcia oscillate between two possible definitions of photography – from a recording system in the tradition of documentary and a system of representation in the tradition of fiction. The use of different contradictory light sources in the same picture is symptomatic of his staging of reality. In Napoli 1996 a man walking down the street in broad daylight is fictionalized by the flash of the camera. Related to the world of cinema in the case of “Hollywood” (1990-1992), fashion in the series “W” (1997-2000), and advertising, the photographer questions the representation of reality, between the utopia of transparency and necessary construction. “I try to criticize the beast I work with. This monster of whom I share my bed with is about me,” the artist says. His photographs are a space alien in the world of the viewer because of the absorbance of characters. In “Mario” (1978), a man leaning in front of a refrigerator is estranged to the outside world, far from the viewer, denying his/her presence. Immobility is also a constant in the artist’s work. Psychological tension and dramatical equilibrium structure his photographs like enigmas or like “moments suspended in narratives that unfold,” as critic Peter Galassi suggests. Phillip-Lorca diCorcia was born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
