Zero Stress – Day / Visiting Eye-Candy

A couple of posts ago I mentioned I should get out more. Not shooting pics as such, but actually just a day out. This is what we did yesterday, the kids were with their grandparents and we had a great day out in Antwerp. Already for weeks we were planning on going to an exhibition of Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf. We missed the opening, because of the kids being sick, but this time nothing was in our way. Camera: check! Car: check! Sun and sunglasses: double check! Let’s roll!

For those not familiar with Olaf’s amazing images his website is a great place to start. Of course photographs are meant to be viewed in print and if you would be in or around Belgium, Antwerp, I can highly recommend that you go have a look. Erwin Olaf turns fifty this year (born in Hilversum, second of June 1959) and this compilation of his work is a great celebration of 25 years of photographic work. Olaf’s career really started in 1984, the year when his images from naked bodybuilders were found too explicit, and were banned form an exhibition in the New Chuch in Amsterdam. Controversy has surrounded some of his images later on as well, but it’s too easy to define his entire oeuvre this way.

If you’re not able to go to this exhibition, but you’ll like to see his images in print then there’s always a book. You can find one here.

This book has series which are unfortunately not on Display in Antwerp. For example ‘Grief’ and ‘Hope’. Of course I am hardly an art-critic and even though I do for the most part agree with the promo description provided on the Aperture Foundation site, I actually find also a good resemblance with the works from Edward Hopper (Please correct me if am wrong). From the description on this site:

Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf delivers velvet-gloved emotional impact with his highly stylized mode of image making. His work offers a blend of mid-century modern and noir aesthetics seen through a contemporary, fashion-inflected lens. The ambiance of the series presented in this volume—the first time these three bodies of work have been presented as a whole—is truly enigmatic and enticing. Olaf seduces the viewer via a mannered, restrained palette that is replete with faded avocado greens, golden-hued oranges, and subtle lilacs.

Each richly colored and sleekly composed image offers a sly reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell-like iconography and characters, manifesting a nostalgia that both burlesques and wryly celebrates America of the 1950s and ’60s. As a whole, the material investigates what critic Jonathan Turner defines as “Olaf’s recent fascination with the visual representation of such emotions as loss, loneliness, and quiet despair…. [He] plays games with the idea of cold reality versus cruel artifice, capturing that precise moment when innocence, hope, and joy are lost.”

First time I saw Olaf’s images from the ‘Hope’ series I immediately had this association with some of Hopper’s works. Yes sure, ‘Nighthawks’ and ‘Summertime’, but also later work from the late fifties and sixties, like ‘ New York Office’ or ‘Sunlight in a Cafeteria’. I’m probably way out of my league here, but I think it’s not a coincidence that Erwin Olaf refers back to this time, mixing his childhood memories, with the overall atmosphere of the sixties, and yes: emotions as loss and quiet despair. One of my Hopper favorites ‘Rooms by the Sea’ is described by  Ivo Kranzfelder as: The contrast between a pristine, intrinsically anti-human nature and a civilization abandoned by humanity. Something I also find in some of Olaf’s images. This being said, I also don’t believe in comparing too much, and although clearly inspired from various styles and artists (I sure hope so), Erwin Olaf really has a style very much his own.

Seems I got distracted here a little bit. I just wanted to show you some pics from our day out. Plus I didn’t really tell you what there is to see at the exhibition. Well there’s the huge prints and video of  ‘Separation’…a pretty scary vision. There’s the critique on fashion ideals ‘Mature’. Huge prints of his  Baroque ‘Blacks’, all his ‘chessmen’,  the new York Times Couture prints, oh and a whole wall of ‘Paradise the Club’. Oh well, I left out a couple of things , like the Diana look-a-like, and the fantastic  Spanish works. Last are really cool too.

I was not allowed to take my camera in (of course) but someone  took some photos on the opening day and posted them on indymedia.be. I think the pics are done with a cell phone camera, and aren’t the best of quality. It doesn’t really justify the exposition but never the less: here’s the link. A portrait from the artist by a Belgian talented photographer (Jimmy Kets) you’ll find here.

Ok, and now on with pictures I took after visiting the FotoMuseum. Like I mentioned before it was a very sunny day. We got out around two, so the sun was high up. I just had my cam with me, no reflector and certainly not my poor men’s pocket wizards and tripod, so the only flash I had was on top of my camera (aiaiai!). Of course after watching meticulously planned images it’s kind of hard to settle with normal snapshots. But ah well, we were having a ‘no stress’ day, so even when I was so inspired to get into the studio as fast as possible, one just had to not think about work for one day.

This fantastic rusted door we passed just minutes from the Fotomuseum on the ‘Waalse Kaai’ just around the corner of another great museum, the Muhka. I’m sure I’m not the first one using this background for a quick portrait. The rest of the afternoon we just walked like tourists looking for a place to have a drink and did some window shopping really, so I  had to be fast when I wanted to take a shot ;-)

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Here’s on a great day. Thank you mom and dad for minding the kids. For those still reading this: go see that exhibition (leave the kids at home, because some things are a bit difficult to explain), and if you have enough time visit the other exhibition in the Fototmuseum as well. They’re really worth your time. Hope your weekend was as sunny and fun. Have a good one!