Wednesday 9 December 2009

Unit 3 -Photography on Asylums

Related with my scene, I researched some photographers ,who had works related to Asylums.

Richard Avedon


Honestly, I wasnt familiar with Richard Avedon's photographs, apparently he did portraits of well-known artist, such as Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, etc. But what calls my attention to his work is the project he did about Mental Institutions, his work is so strong that can be quite disturbing to see, his pictures show frontal shots of people with hard-degree of mental illness, also where the spectator is confronted with weird situations and are almost is like infiltrated in the middle of a quite disturbing scene.

Unfortunately, I can't upload any more pictures, but Richard Avedon's can be seen here and on Artsy page at: https://www.artsy.net/artist/richard-avedon

Other artist, that I found really interesting is Christopher Payne, not for his photographs of people, but instead for pictures of inside of abandoned asylums.



Christopher Payne



His works are really interesting and in some cases, quite ambiguous, specially the on that represents the hall way with a open door, provoking the viewer to want to guess what is coming from them. Also, the picture on his website, with a door leading to a bedroom bears a lot of ambiguity, wanting the viewer to open the door, plead to show some more.
Again unfortunately, I am not able to upload the pictures that I wanted as they are not available to download only to be seen in his website, so if you want to see more of Christopher Payne's photographs, they can be found here


Once again, I was unfamiliar with these artworks but that is precious reward when you research something you learn always more that you already know.

1 comment:

Matthew Munday said...

ruben you should take a look at labourne grange. Its an old disused mental institution, its supposedly haunted as well. Its not that far from uni as a matter of fact, if you and maybe a few others ever wanted to go and see it, i could drive us. We would have to go in the daytime though, because i went once before at night and its freaky. Inside there are still the chains and things that used to keep the patients safe. Type it in on the internet and you will find some interesting stuff