Staged

Untitled (boy with hand in drain)
Gregory Crewdson
digital print
2001-2002
48 x 60” (121.9 x 152.4 cm.)
Albright Knox Art Gallery

I don't know when I discovered Gregory Crewdson, but I do know that his series (of which this is part) was created in western Massachusetts not far from TwilightMASS MoCA (along with the help of a number of people who worked there) around the time I interned there.

In his highly staged photographs, Crewdson's images blur the border between ficiton and reality. The series focuses on a banal suburban environment. Many of the photos take place outside on suburban streets, this entire image was constructed as a set. "The dark, empty space visible below the floor and the dramatic light streaming in the window turn what at first appears to be a mundane domestic scene into an unexplainable moment in an unknown narrative. Crewdson makes rather then takes his photographs, exposing the dreams, anxieties, fears, and desires that underlie everyday life." (http://www.albrightknox.org/acquisitions/acq_2004/Crewdson.html)

I find the awkward, uncanny and unsettling images intriguing, from the sleekness of the creation to the unsettling feeling they can often provoke.

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