Still Motion
Falling is a weighty subject. From the thrill of rushing wind to the fear of pain and death, falling intrigues and captivates. There’s something about the utter lack of control that creates such a guttural response. Falling is a contextual action: Why is a person falling? From what is a person falling? To what is a person falling? If we take away these contexts we are left with only the fall itself, a moment in space and time characterized by lack of control.
Margo Moritz’ photography exhibit “Exquisite Abandon” explores falling using beautiful, fashionable, emotionless models suspended in free fall. All contextual variants are left out of the picture. There is something almost anarchical about the photographs; there is no sense of order or justice I can latch onto. Devoid of anything but the fall itself, Margot Moritz’ fallers have seemingly succumbed to their fate in a numbed state. I cannot identify with these lovely fallers. Falling fills me with fear and dread and all evidence of this strong gut instinct appears absent in them. Are these pictures beautiful or aberrant distortions of reality?
Other photographs in the series include a nude woman who is lit like the surface of the moon, her body oftentimes obscured. Although she is lit with a sense of modesty, close-ups of the woman’s body are ambiguous: is that a shoulder? A knee? Thus the photographs are non-contextual representations of a naked woman’s body.
The remaining photos of the exhibit are blurred images of a woman dancing against a white backdrop. The blank white setting lends a sense of airiness and space. Again, these photos have no context. Simply a woman dancing, there is no where or why.
The photographs leave me baffled; they are beautiful and eerie. The utter lack of context is bewildering. They play with elements of dance (bodies, movement) but beyond these rudiments they have little in common with dance, which unfolds and has meaning through time and space. Photography is limited in how it can explore dance as a subject. The transitions before and after the snap that comprise a dance are absent in a photograph. Although dance and photography both explore ephemeral natures, they explore it in very different ways: photography aims to capture the ephemeral; dance aims to move through it. Margo’s study of movement in “Exquisite Abandon” is a tribute to dance in the capturing of bodies in space. At the same time it bears little semblance to dance as it shuns context, place, and time.
Go see Margo Moritz’ exhibit at 625 Sutter Street, on display through September 30th. It’s brief, it’s free, and it’s food for the eyes and mind.
Margo Moritz’ photography exhibit “Exquisite Abandon” explores falling using beautiful, fashionable, emotionless models suspended in free fall. All contextual variants are left out of the picture. There is something almost anarchical about the photographs; there is no sense of order or justice I can latch onto. Devoid of anything but the fall itself, Margot Moritz’ fallers have seemingly succumbed to their fate in a numbed state. I cannot identify with these lovely fallers. Falling fills me with fear and dread and all evidence of this strong gut instinct appears absent in them. Are these pictures beautiful or aberrant distortions of reality?
Other photographs in the series include a nude woman who is lit like the surface of the moon, her body oftentimes obscured. Although she is lit with a sense of modesty, close-ups of the woman’s body are ambiguous: is that a shoulder? A knee? Thus the photographs are non-contextual representations of a naked woman’s body.
The remaining photos of the exhibit are blurred images of a woman dancing against a white backdrop. The blank white setting lends a sense of airiness and space. Again, these photos have no context. Simply a woman dancing, there is no where or why.
The photographs leave me baffled; they are beautiful and eerie. The utter lack of context is bewildering. They play with elements of dance (bodies, movement) but beyond these rudiments they have little in common with dance, which unfolds and has meaning through time and space. Photography is limited in how it can explore dance as a subject. The transitions before and after the snap that comprise a dance are absent in a photograph. Although dance and photography both explore ephemeral natures, they explore it in very different ways: photography aims to capture the ephemeral; dance aims to move through it. Margo’s study of movement in “Exquisite Abandon” is a tribute to dance in the capturing of bodies in space. At the same time it bears little semblance to dance as it shuns context, place, and time.
Go see Margo Moritz’ exhibit at 625 Sutter Street, on display through September 30th. It’s brief, it’s free, and it’s food for the eyes and mind.
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