Twilight: Photographs by Gregory Crewdson

Product Information

New York, New York: Fifty Years of Art, Architecture, Photography, Film and Video, Grimaldi Forum, Monaco Still, at a certain time, toward nightfall on certain days of the year, Crewdson is obliged to make pictures. His apparent composure and good nature is sorely tested on set, he says. As the light fades, there are often problems - with neighbours, the weather, unexpected interruptions. "I never think we're going to make it," he says.

Each of the photos was elaborately staged in a manner likely to reference eerie shows such as The Twilight Zone 2 or films such as Close Encounters 3 which mainly deal with paranormal events. Gregory Crewdson – Untitled from Twilight, 2001 Gregory Crewdson – Untitled from Twilight, 1998 A result of weeks of planning David Lynch’s Blue Velvet […] would be the movie that defined me as I was coming of age. I encountered it when I was a graduate student at Yale. I remember feeling deeply connected to how it used the American vernacular, and revealed something more dark and sinister underneath it. I was also completely connected to the way it looked: the use of light and darkness. I’m not saying it’s the best movie ever made, but the one that defined me the most.” Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of twenty new photographs by Gregory Crewdson. Crewdson continues his ongoing series of elaborately staged, large-scale color photographs that explore the psychological underside of the American vernacular. The photographs combine a realist aesthetic sensibility with a highly orchestrated interplay of cinematic lighting, staging, and special effects. This collision between the normal and the paranormal produces a tension that serves to transform the topology of the suburban landscape into a place of wonder and anxiety. This eerie and disturbing image features all ordinary subjects and objects, however, unsettles the viewer through its depiction of a fictional realm. Like many of Crewdson’s photographs, meaning is elusive and one can only find more questions than answers. During this time, Crewdson worked at Aperture magazine and also did an internship at the Daniel Wolf Gallery in Manhattan.

Photography Portfolio I & II, Paula Cooper, Carolina Nitsch & The Merce Cunningham Dace Co., Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA 2006 Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (solo) 2005 Gregory Crewdson: 1985-2005, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany (solo) Photochrome, Current Contemporary Photography from New York City Galleries, Silvermine Guild Galleries, New Cannan, USA

Settings and Players: Theatrical Ambiguity in American Photography, White Cube, London, England and The City Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic Contemporary American Photography 1970-2000, From the Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, Korea Twilight and many other works by Gregory Crewdson highlight the mystery and beauty that exists in everyday life. In essence, Twilight was created as a means of attempting to find meaning in the world that we live in today. The pictures are staged to explain the anxiety, fear, and desire of the subjects, which probably helps to explain why the photographs are so charged emotionally. Gregory Crewdson – Untitled (sleep walker) from Twilight, 1999 Gregory Crewdson – Untitled (Rug lady) from Twilight, 1999 Final words

Dealers

In 1992, Gregory Crewdson held his solo exhibition at the Houston Center for Photography and in 1997 at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. In 1998, he exhibited at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and appeared in numerous group shows throughout the 1990s and 2000s.