Gregory Crewdson

From Henry Peach Robinson in the 1860s to Duane Michals one hundred years later, photographers have staged elaborate narratives in order to explore the philosophical questions that haunt human history: Why are we here? What do we know? And what the hell is going on? Crewdson takes this photographic tradition and these metaphysical and epistemological questions and transplants them into a contemporary American suburban landscape. Crewdson’s elaborate photographic tableaux have grown in complexity over the last dozen years; he now employs up to 300 assistants, from stylists to plumbers, architects to actors, in order to stage a single photograph.

Although the photographs in Blur of the Otherworldly are among Crewdson’s early efforts at staging and involve simpler production, his photographs from the early 1990s
are no less elegantly enigmatic. Crewdson’s imagery is narrative in nature, suggesting a film still; but because of its stillness, because the image is not immediately replaced by the next frame as it would be in film, the photograph sits patiently while you gaze fixedly, waiting for the riddle to unravel. But the image resists, stubbornly hiding its secrets. Crewdson’s pictures combine the childlike wonder of the everyday with a very adultlike suspicion that all is not what it seems. This suspicion is present in the Natural Wonder series, in which nature itself seems to be conspiring against us. One’s paranoia need not be fueled by human actions alone; there is plenty afoot amidst the flora and fauna of this world to inspire densely woven conspiracy theories. At the heart of Crewdson’s imagery is the fear that we can never fathom what is in the hearts of others, perhaps not even our own. Wonder and fear dance an endless waltz on Crewdson’s stage.

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