Gregory Crewdson
An Eclipse of Moths
Four years after the spectacular Cathedral of the Pines show, Gregory Crewdson’s latest series An Eclipse of Mothswill premiere in Europe at Templon in Paris. This ensemble of sixteen panoramic photographs is the result of over two years’ work.
In an America mired in a health and political crisis, with the presidential campaign in full swing, Gregory Crewdson, the undisputed master of staged photography, offers an empathetic and critical reflection on his country. Depicting outdoor scenes in a small, desolate town in post-industrial New England, the artist conceived the works as a meditation on the fragility of the world, brokenness, the yearning for redemption and the quest for transcendence.
Motionless, lost, the protagonists of these ambitious compositions evoke the moths chosen for the exhibition’s title. Gregory Crewdson explains that he chose the image of an eclipse of moths to evoke the phenomenon whereby the insects, drawn by the artificial lights of the city, cluster together and lose their bearings. A metaphor for our contemporary disorientation, these works subtly question the vulnerability of the human condition and the paradoxes of the American dream. Never didactic, they leave the viewer free to imagine the stories hidden beneath the surface and dream of other possibilities.
Alone Street
The artist
Born in 1962 in Brooklyn, Gregory Crewdson lives and works in New York. A leading figure in American photography, he stages his photographs like films, using actors, sets, props people, storyboards and make-up artists. In this way, he addresses the dark side of the American dream as well as his own psychological issues. He believes that only photography always remains silent. There is no before and no after. The events it captures do not unveil their mystery.
