Avedon / Warhol – Gagosian Brittania – London – Photography / Painting
La note de Plac'Art: ►►►►►
Big names, famous gallery, icons working with icons, and for the first time, the two artists are paired together in the beautiful King Cross space for Gagosian. What brings them together: a fascination with America’s nascent celebrity scene, an aesthetic so distinctively recognizable (Avedon’s pared-back, black-and-white photographs finding a high-key counterpart in Warhol’s super-refined
screenprints), a close examination, and contribution to, glamour, with its glitter and vulnerability. One of the most beautiful work is Avedon’s 1969 photograph of Warhol’s Factory. Strangely enough, another wall is a collection of Avedon’s pictures of the working, powerful, American civil servant and politician, a “grey collar” wall of portraits. In those, his talents is at its highest, capturing, behind the mask of uniformity, that moment when the intimacy of the person is revealed, a touching vulnerability. What a contrast with Warhol’s glossy prints, expressionless, and glamorous forever. The show is also a reminder of times past, when images were rare and meaningful, away from today’s world of instagrams and selfies.
A nice surprise was discovering the beautiful space of Gagosian Brittani, with its vast walls and ceilings, in the rapidly changing neighborhood of Kings Cross.
