This exercise asks for a series of still-life pictures showing traces of life without using people, so I ask permission to some relatives to allow me to take a picture of their beds just as they got up from them.
This is a transient moment where the bed retains clear evidences of the human body, until, in most cases, the bed is made few minutes later. Maybe I took very literal the brief of the exercise and the traces of the people are the footprint that inevitably the body left on the bed sheet.
In addition, an unmade bed belongs to our private and intimate realm: almost everyone has his own bed, and nobody likes to show his messy den, so take a glimpse into it, although in many cases it shows nothing particularly interesting, it could be considered a low-level transgression, and perhaps it would be worthy to do further explorations on the subject.
The American photographer Felix González-Torres (1958-1996) made something similar in his work “Untitled (1991)”: a billboard installed in twenty-four locations throughout New York City of a monochrome photograph of an unoccupied bed:
“The photograph’s depiction of such an intimate scene is given its drama by being place into the public context of urban streets and highways for the scrutiny of the passers-by”
Here I’m showing the bed within my learning blog, but I wonder what impact it could have on the viewer seeing such pictures on the gallery wall. And how would it be perceived by the owner of the bed?
Although I didn’t have a great repertoire of bed to photograph, I tried different visual approach to each one.
July 13, 2017 at 8:31 pm
How were the photographs perceived by the bed occupants then?
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July 14, 2017 at 6:15 am
I will try to confront the occupants with their beds in a couple of months…or years
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July 14, 2017 at 7:55 am
Not having a great repertoire of beds – thinking of hotel and housekeeping chores . Every morning making the bed. Perhaps, as hotel rooms are quite similar each, it could focus the viewer more on the personality that was there? Like the idea of traces very much
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