A timely retrospective from one of the most referenced visual artists

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	• Gregory Crewdson Martin Hochleitner, Urs Stahel Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2005 - 242 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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A timely retrospective from one of the most referenced visual artists

Having spoken several times with the artist Gregory Crewdson, I'm comfortable in saying that a retrospective of his art is an insight only into his (r)evolutionary techniques and dream narratives. The man himself is a slightly bemused, curious artist with an assured but uncaring knowledge of his impact. A recent panel at Princeton, pitted Gregory against motion pictures' reigning dream narrative king, Spike Jonze. There's a reason Spike's infamous Addidas spot was particularly brilliant...the scenes, the props and even the film coloring were all lifted quite clearly from Crewdson's eponymous single frame masterpieces. This book has the beautiful and haunting recent work, but also features a assortment of compositions from his earliest period; a period that seemed to focus on the grey mood and the everydayness from a Walker Percy life. A period in the early nineties shows the transition to curious composition; with hints of what was to come. Overall brilliant, and I"m sure music video directors will steal openly from the pages of this great book as well.

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i expected more

i was excited to see this book, before i actually saw it, and disappointed by how few excellent images the artist has produced over the 20 years the book covers. the black and white aerial creations were fascinating, but the earlier color work seems average when put up against other similar work of the time. the later stuff is also very interesting, but they need the scale of a gallery with huge walls to have the intended effect - in a book they just don't translate.

i would suggest jeff wall or philip lorca di corcia before this book, and mitch epstein or joel sternfeld for the real choice stuff.

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EVERYDAY

this is the way that i see life. i am a an employee of a funeral home, and attending mortuary school. that hazy life that Crewdson depicts is everyday to me. A work of art. The alcohol in my veins never felt so good as i gaze at these amazing parts of the world. Twilight is mosiac as well.

DO NOT BUY FINE ART BOOKS FROM AMAZON!!

The book is fantastic! However to my horror it was packed very badly and the book arrived scratched and a damaged. Amazon expects me to pay for all shipping costs to get a refund of the book value only. Since I live in Australia the return shipping would surpass the value of the books sent. I emailed Amazon with this issue 2 weeks ago and NO REPLY!

DO NOT BUY FINE ART BOOKS FROM AMAZON!!

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reviews: page 1, 2

Gregory Crewdson's photographic series capture a particularly American state of normalcy--in dissolution. The viewer, at first seduced by what appears to be an idyllic scene, soon discovers subtle off-kilter elements more akin to Film Noir than an NBC comedy. In a work from his Twilight series, yellow school buses are parked outside white wooden houses, and students stand and lounge around in seeming passivity. Something is happening--what, we don't know. The vision is familiar yet unfamiliar, seemingly benign yet threatening. Crewdson goes to great lengths in dramatizing his disturbing suburban scenes, employing elaborate lighting, cranes, props, and extras, espousing a level of behind-the-scenes preparation more akin to the making of a Hollywood movie than the making of a still image. Here perhaps is one place to locate the eerie unreality and narrativity of his pictures, the creepy attention to detail so out of place, in the ordinary settings he evokes. Middle-class reality meets the other side of the normal here--by way of Sigmund Freud.

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