Works Exhibited
About
I don’t have a script. I have an idea that I work around but don’t necessarily solve.
—Roe Ethridge
Gagosian is pleased to present Sanctuary, new photographs by Roe Ethridge.
Ethridge’s work embodies the heteroglossia of the photographic realm, where the languages of commercial photography, fine art, stock imagery, and social media constantly intertwine. And just as these different genres cohabit on magazine pages and computer screens, for Ethridge, an exhibition is an opportunity to bring together the divergent subjects and styles within his own practice—suggesting that a mixing of categories is not to be avoided but to be embraced, protected even.
In this exhibition, Ethridge moves between work and home, city and country, labor and leisure, switching codes as he goes. The images interrupt each other, like fragments of different stories coming together to form a single, ludic narrative. This bricolage often reveals unexpected relationships. In a self-portrait from 2017, Ethridge’s face, covered in sunblock, peers over his cellphone into a mirror. Then, his face appears again on the torso of model Maryel Sousa—as if her leotard has accidentally reflected the man behind the camera.
Several of the included photographs were taken at a cleaning facility in Brooklyn, New York, across the street from a photo studio where Ethridge often shoots for commissioned projects. Images of workers in their uniforms and the six-part work Suds and Rugs at Megerian Rug Cleaners (2018), which shows paintlike smears of soap over saturated carpets, contrast with photographs that were taken on the very same block, including a portrait of actor Lakeith Stanfield in a coiffed auburn wig. The staged and the real are thus placed on the same plane, making it difficult to determine which photographs are sincere, and whether notions of sincerity or truth are relevant at all.
我沒有劇本。我會圍繞著一個概念去構思，但不一定要解決它。
—羅伊·埃思里奇
高古軒欣然呈獻「避難所」展覽，展出羅伊·埃思里奇（Roe Ethridge）的最新攝影傑作。
在埃思里奇的作品中，商業攝影、藝術、庫存照片和社交媒體的語言不斷交錯，展現攝影世界的多元聲音。而這些截然不同的體裁於雜誌和網絡上共存，對於埃思里奇而言，展覽意味著一次以自己的方式將這些不同題材與風格共冶一爐的機會，借此來表達我們不應避免不同類別的混合，反而應該勇於接納，甚至對此加以保護。
是次展覽中，埃思里奇遊走於工作與家居、城市與鄉郊、勞動與休閒之間，並隨心轉換視覺元素。圖像互相干擾，仿佛不同故事的碎片組出一個獨立而有趣的故事。這種拼貼手法往往能展現意想不到的關係。在一張攝於2017年的自拍照中，埃思里奇面部凃滿防曬霜，目光越過手機望向一面鏡子。而當他的臉孔再次出現於模特兒Maryel Sousa的身上時，彷彿她的緊身衣意外地反射了鏡頭後男子的面容 。
數幅展出的作品拍攝於紐約布魯克林的一家清潔公司。埃思里奇經常在這家公司街對面的攝影工作室裡進行委託項目的拍攝。身着制服的工人照片以及由六部份組成的作品《Megerian 地氈清潔公司的肥皂泡沫與地氈》（Suds and Rugs at Megerian Rug Cleaners，2018年）展示了浸滿類似顏料的肥皂泡沫的地氈，與攝於街對面工作室演員Lakeith Stanfield戴著精心梳理的啡紅色假髮的照片形成強烈對比。展覽將精心鋪排的畫面與真實生活的場景一同展示，令人難以分辨孰真孰假，甚至質疑於此討論真誠與真相是否有意義。
家庭生活的題材亦貫徹展覽。在《長島中西部》（Midwest Long Island，2018年）中，一間在陽光下閃閃發亮的小白屋屹立於地平線上，而在《母親與iPhone》（Mom with iPhone，2018年）中，埃思里奇的母親正給他看手機屏幕上的東西，而屏幕則在照片中央發光。在《父母的藥丸瓶》（Mom and Dad’s Pill Bottles，2018年）裡，斑駁的花崗岩桌面放有一排藥丸瓶，與四朵紅玫瑰的特寫形成對比──從而使浪漫的花園景象對陣平淡無奇的鄉郊生活。
「避難所」一詞就像埃思里奇的攝影作品一樣，其意義會隨不同語境而截然不同，例如移民爭論、宗教場所或生態保護。生態保護這一語境則是透過直白的動物照片來表達，包括池塘裡的鴨、玩線球的長毛白貓、暢游的海豚以及一隻鮮橙色背景前的海龜，龜殼的底部邊緣寫著歪歪曲曲的「sanctuary」（避難所）一詞。
羅伊‧埃思里奇於1969年生於邁阿密，現於紐約定居及工作。他的作品獲多間博物館收藏，包括洛杉磯當代藝術博物館、波士頓當代美術館、倫敦泰特美術館及比利時根特Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst。他近期的展覽包括波士頓當代美術館「Momentum 4: Roe Ethridge」展覽（2005年）；2008年紐約惠特尼雙年展；法國第戎Le Consortium（2012年，巡展至比利時魯汶博物館）；以及辛辛那提當代藝術中心第三屆FotoFocus Biennial的「Nearest Neighbor」展覽（2016年）。
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Artist
Downloads
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2023
The Spring 2023 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Roe Ethridge’s Two Kittens with Yarn Ball (2017–22) on its cover.
In Conversation
Roe Ethridge and Antwaun Sargent
From his early work for magazines in the 1990s to recent projects with the designer Telfar Clemens, Roe Ethridge has consistently challenged the distinctions between commercial and conceptual photography that long defined the medium. Antwaun Sargent recently caught up with him to discuss the moment that confirmed the artist’s understanding of the photographic image’s potential for boundary-hopping ubiquity in the contemporary era.
Shortlist
Twelve Tracks: Roe Ethridge
Roe Ethridge shares the transportive powers of his playlist “Teenage Chemicals in 1985,” a soundtrack that began playing in those formative years and hasn’t stopped since.
Roe Ethridge
During a conversation with David Rimanelli, Roe Ethridge reflected on photographs that he made during the late 1990s and early 2000s after moving to New York. They spoke as Ethridge was preparing for his exhibition Old Fruit.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2020
The Spring 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #412 (2003) on its cover.
Picasso and Maya: An Interview with Diana Widmaier-Ruiz-Picasso
Diana Widmaier-Ruiz-Picasso curated an exhibition at Gagosian, Paris, in 2017–18 titled Picasso and Maya: Father and Daughter. To celebrate the exhibition, a publication was published in 2019; the comprehensive reference publication explores the figure of Maya Ruiz-Picasso, Pablo Picasso’s beloved eldest daughter, throughout Picasso’s work and chronicles the loving relationship between the artist and his daughter. In this video, Widmaier-Ruiz-Picasso details her ongoing interest in the subject and reflects on the process of making the book.
News
Artist Spotlight
Roe Ethridge
April 29–May 5, 2020
In his photographs, Roe Ethridge uses the real to suggest—or disrupt—the ideal. Through commercial images of fashion models, products, and advertisements, as well as intimate moments from his own daily life, he subverts the residual authority of established artistic genres such as the still life or the portrait, merging them with the increasingly pervasive image culture of the present. The continuous cross-pollination of fine art and applied photography has come to be the hallmark of Ethridge’s practice.
Photo: Vincent Dilio
