Gregory Crewdson

In these pictures I draw upon the inherent quietness and uncanny aspects of the empty sets. As with much of my work, I looked at the blurred lines between reality and fiction, nature and artifice, and beauty and decay.
—Gregory Crewdson

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present "Sanctuary," Gregory Crewdson's latest photographic series.

Sanctuary, a group of forty-one black-and-white photographs, is the first that Crewdson has produced outside the United States. Digitally photographed and produced with minimal reworking, it is also his first black and white series since Hover (1996–1997). Shot on location at the legendary Cinecittà studios in Rome, he has moved beyond the construction of the surreal human drama that drove previous series.

Sanctuary is virtually devoid of human presence. Instead, Crewdson has made the abandoned outdoor film sets the subject of, rather than the mere setting for, his pictures. Moving through the empty streets of "Ancient Rome" at the beginning and end of the day, he has captured the palpable atmospheres of melancholy lurking at every twist and turn, cloaked in shadow or suddenly illuminated by a shaft of daylight. Although the links to the great chroniclers of urban environments such as Eugene Atget and William Eggleston are evident, Crewdson has added a new layer to the genre by searching for his particular form of verité within the artificial leftovers of cinematic reality.