Stretch #1 - Evan Penny (owned by the AGO) |
Here is an example of a sculpture with no associated living model and the photo that resulted from it:
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My apologies for the flash reflection on the photo. I didn't notice how strong it was until I got home. That aside, it was nearly impossible to tell—even blown up to poster size and with the viewer standing right in front of it—that this photo was of someone who wasn't real. Amazing stuff.
One of the rooms at the exhibition contained several sculptures that were all done using the same original bust:
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The explanation of the process (click to expand and read) |
And here is the photo Penny took of one of the busts. I still feel this doesn't give the impression of being a photo of a real person nearly as strongly as the black and white photo did:
Photo of the male bust |
Here are a series of photos of a single sculpture, taken at various levels of zoom:
Do any of them seem like they are photos of a real person? I think the second one, with the moderate zoom, is pretty close.
I'm going to conclude this post with an assortment of shots of other Penny pieces in the exhibition. I cannot overstate how eerie this show was; appropriately, in an exhibition of sculptures in a "hyper-realistic" style, I think the best description of how I felt while I attended is...."hyper real". All my Spidey Senses were tingling at the same time. I'm delighted we got to see it, though.
That last piece? By far the creepiest in the entire show. The hair is standing up on my arms and the back of my neck just writing about it here! The exhibition, by the way, runs until February 20th so, unlike the Frida & Diego show, there is still time to catch up with Evan Penny.
And that's the "triptych" of blog posts about our most recent AGO excursion. Thank you for indulging me!
Penny's work is incredibly difficult to capture in photographs, as the scale and the "in person experience" of it is too ethereal to capture in 2 dimensions. I think that "L. Faux", whom I'm standing next to in the above photo, was my favourite.
ReplyDeleteI agree and I think that, in a way, even extends one of the points he is making. I enjoyed it so much, though, that I might have to go back before it closes!
DeleteI saw a show of Penny's many many years ago (in the 1980's) and am impressed by what has changed in his work and what has remained the same. He was doing realist stuff back then and playing with scale, but he wasn't "creating" people who didn't exist. Thanks for this blog about the show. It would have been fun to see in person but your photos and text have done a great job of allowing me to share the experience.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of a greater compliment than this comment from you. Thank you!
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