Lauren ©Rachael Dunville,2008
There is a fantastic group exhibition of photography coming up called Bare at Micheal Mazzeo Gallery in New York which has been curated by the one and only Joerg Colberg of the Conscientious blog. It will be on view from December 11 through January 24. A reception for the artists will be held at the gallery on Thursday,December 11, from 6 PM to 8PM.
Emerging from a long history of figurative representation, the images that make up Bare represent various perspectives on the human form, and the relationships that are defined by physical experience. Reflecting a contemporary liberation from deeply rooted and oppressive conventions, particularly the issues of the male gaze and the imposition of sexuality onto an objectified body, these photographs reveal emotional and psychological intimacies that allow the subjects to be represented as independent beings.
The photographers included in Bare actively counter the images of exclusively sexual and idealized bodies, exploited by the unwitting alliance of conservative groups and the advertising industry, which despite their divergent goals, function in the same way to impose an unattainable beauty standard, and the equation of nudity = sex.
This infiltration into one’s most intimate and vulnerable space, is gradually undone by the relief of photographic representations of genuine physical beauty that can only be the result of a genuine self-possession of the body.
Empowered in their sense of self, the subjects of Bare engage in revealing moments of vulnerability and uncertainty, and express the seducing subtleties of the photographer/subject relationship. Whether quiet and reflective, caught in moments of awkward consciousness, or boldly available to the viewer, the subjects participate in the photographers common practice of sincere and uncontrived representation.
Ron, New York, NY 2007 ©Amy Elkins courtesy of Yancey Richardson Gallery
Josef ©Richard Learoyd
