Cover image courtesy Pieternel van Velden
Images clockwise from left:
Image courtesy of OMA
Left: Mishka Henner, Feedlots, 2013. Right: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, 2018. Photo: Luca Locatelli
Visual harmony is when everything lines up, colors dance together, shadows carve depth; it’s a fleeting moment in which everything sits perfect for a second. A phenomenon Meyerowitz was true in chasing; moments he describes as “nearly invisible” because of their transience. His hunt for harmony leads his lens to near and far. In the inertia of 1960s New York streets, these moments are much hard to come by but so alluring when witnessed, and Meyerowitz preserves it to be seen by all. Shifting his camera's gaze from the velocity and energy within NYC to a slower scenery in the 1970s. In the open horizons, undisturbed by honking horns and masses of animated characters, color and form become the main subjects.
Meyerowitz is driven by a Robert Frost quote from The Figure of a Poem: 'No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew.' He spots the near invisible surprises in the habitual routines of life. During a time when color in photography was considered aesthetically limiting and technically inferior, reserved for advertisements and holiday cards, Meyerowitz showed how color invites a whole new layer of emotional and visual depth. Color is what the world knows, but when orchestrated so thoughtfully, it illustrates a world like ours but rich in dreaminess, vividity, and whimsy.
The exhibit will run June 5th-July 11th at 3-5 Swallow Street, London.
Digitally carved from 3D scans, the hands and feet are modeled from the artist Yaz Exall's own body, while the lower form references an imprint taken from the artist’s childhood best friend, preserving even the impression of a thong. Exaggerated hemispherical breasts rendered in a cubist style further distort the figure, pointing toward cosmetic idealization and the increasing artificiality of bodily perfection. Through its title, Dividend positions femininity as something exchanged, consumed, altered, and assigned value tracing the uneasy intersection of intimacy, violence, labor, and desire.
