Genres: TABLEAUX

TABLEAUX

TABLEAUX is a genre of photography meaning ‘living pictures’. The text gives a wide list of photographers who work within this genre of photography and we are told to specifically look at the work of Gregory Crewdson as a research point.

Gregory Crewdson was born in 1962 and is an ‘American photographer who is best known for elaborately staged, surreal scenes of American homes and neighbourhoods.’ (RoGallery 2014) He has exhibited his work through the United states and Europe and is currently represented by the Gagosian Gallery in New York.

The first thing that strikes me as I look at Crewdson’s work is how realistic they are. They almost appear at first to be film stills and you wouldn’t know that these were staged images. His 2005 series “Beneath the Roses” exhibits his ability to stage large scale areas into his images.

Gregory Crewdson – Beneath the Roses 2005 Whitecube.com

I can only imagine the scale of the production to be able to produce such an image as this. Viewers would take for granted that this was a real life scene captured by the photographer as it would be difficult to comprehend that someone would go to the trouble of setting up a shot where a house was burning just for a shot. The fact that Crewdson does just this is remarkable and shows his dedication to his art. Crewdson produces his art the way a company would make a movie. He uses vast sets and a large production team to create his images so you can see the comparison between his images and film sets.

Crewdson’s 2009 exhibition “Sanctuary” seem like a contrast to the vibrant yet disturbing reality to his other projects. Here, the set of images are black and white and ooze the sense of emptiness and loneliness. The fact the images are black and white lead me to think it was done purposefully to remove any life from the scenes and make then even more ghostly and haunting. 

Gregory Crewdson – Sanctuary 2009 Gagosian Gallery 

But again, the secret is that “Sanctuary” was photographed at a film set of a Roman studio complex. But the fact that these images are so contrasting, in production and in the image, shows what a photographical range Crewdson has.

You really get a feel for Crewdson’s style throughout his images. The low lighting, centred around twilight, the use of colour and the strategically placed people all give a sense of reality but with an heir of mystery. The ability to make his sets look natural and unstaged yet there is something unnatural about them and they have huge production teams to stage them, paying particular attention to fine details.

I found a particularly interesting article at aperture.org on Crewdson, with insightful details and images of the production of his images, showing the scale of the sets and teams to produce the reality of Crewdson’s imagination. You can find that article at http://aperture.org/cre wdson/. 

References:
Aperture 190. Gregory Crewdson .Available at: http://aperture.org/crewdson/ [accessed 14th april 2016]
Gagosian Gallery, 2011. Gregory Crewdson, Sanctuary. Available at: https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/february-03-2011--gregory-crewdson/exhibition- images [accessed 14th april 2016]
RoGallery, 2014. No Title. rogallery.com. Available at:
http://rogallery.com/Crewdson/Crewdson-bio.html [AccessedApril14,2016].
White Cube, 2016. Gregory Crewdson, Beneath the Roses. Available at: http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/gregory_cre wdson_ beneath_the_ roses_hoxton_square_ 2005/ [accessed 14th april 2016]
Hodgson, Francis, 2011. Gregory Crewdson, Sanctuary. Available at: https://francishodgson.com/2011/06/27/sanctuary-gregory-crewdson/ [accessed 14th april 2016]
Victoria and Albert Museum, 2016. Photographs by Gregory Crewdson. Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/gregory-cre wson/
[accessed 14th april 2016]