Swapping colour for black and white, Gregory Crewdson plunges us into the depths of disillusioned America with a new series that’s more crepuscular than ever. Entitled “Eveningside”, this latest instalment in a trilogy developed since 2012 is presented at Galerie Templon in Paris, after having been shown at the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles this summer.
The result of a super-production worthy of a movie shoot (in terms of both the preparations 1 and the sophisticated equipment and lighting requiring a team of forty people), Gregory Crewdson’s shots draw the framework of scenarios “whose beginning and outcome we know neither”. Freeze-frames, in short. This impression of suspended time is even more pronounced in his latest series, where the use of black and white accentuates the frozen appearance of the characters portrayed and the eerie strangeness of deserted streets. With suburban landscapes transformed into fake settings, petrified figures frozen in their daily activities, ambiguous plays on transparency and reflections (through mirrors or store fronts), the emphasis on vehicles or transitional places (road junctions, cabs, porches, supermarkets…), rain or fog effects… Gregory Crewdson pushes the boundary between reality and fiction even further. His black-and-white palette conjures up classic cinema and mid-twentieth-century film noir. What better way to arouse viewers’ curiosity of, who are called upon to “make their own interpretation”, to “invent their own version of the story” for each of these fabricated images?
- Gregory Crewdson’s stagings require the streets to be completely emptied and closed for several days.
STÉPHANIE DULOUT
” Gregory Crewdson – Eveningside”
Till December 23rd
Galerie Templon
28, rue du Grenier-Saint-Lazare, Paris, III
templon.com