Andres Serrano

         

Immersion (Piss Christ), 1987 (original and after attack)

Andres Serrano was raised in a devoutly Catholic neighborhood where religion played a significant part of his growing up. From his first images as an artist, sacred icons and other symbolic elements have been frequenting his tableaux-like photographs. From religious iconography, human subjects, dead animals to more precise elements such as blood (a symbol for passion and violence), urine, milk, semen and later excrement, the artist seeks to convey a sense of dignity to his subjects and to reconcile the sacred and the profane through what Germano Celant termed as “the synthesis of the opposite”, so that “the lower part is in dialogue with the upper part, the human with the divine, the earthbound with the celestial”.

Monica Nouwens

For more than fifteen years, Monica Nouwens has been portraying urban communities in America: from idealistic utopians, neo-hippy communities and anarchistic movements such as ‘Food Not Bombs’ to disillusioned, drug-addicted commandos returning from the war in Iraq. Nouwens is fascinated by the diversity of social manifestations in the city. Over the years she changed from being an outside observer into an involved insider. Ultimately this has formed the basis for her more independent work Look At Me (…). In this body of work her personal experiences with Los Angeles and its subcultures meet. Her commitment to the DIY subculture of youth, against the backdrop of a society facing a financial and moral crisis, is the main focus of the work.

Nan Goldin

Nan one month after being battered, 1984

The ballad of sexual dependency

Aos cinquenta e cinco anos é uma das referências na fotografia contemporânea. Através de retratos e de fotografias de momentos íntimos, Goldin documenta a sua vida e a dos seus amigos. O conteúdo das imagens é muitas vezes mais importante do que a composição. O resultado é um documento único de uma forma de vida.

Larry Clark

Untitled, 1963 (Tulsa series)

Larry Clark is a story-teller. His stories — which boldly confront themes of youth culture, sex, violence, and drugs — are told through two feature films (KIDS, 1995; and Another Day in Paradise, 1998) and four art books (Tulsa, 1971; Teenage Lust, 1983; 1992, 1992; and The Perfect Childhood,1993). While best known for the spiraling controversy in the U.S. and abroad surrounding the release of the independent film KIDS at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995, Larry Clark also remains notorious for his distinctive, sexually-charged photographic essays of youth culture and self-destruction.

Philip-Lorca DiCorcia

Head No. 13, 2000

Philip-Lorca parte de um ponto de vista contraditório só em aparência, na medida em que, para o artista americano, ao se representar o real como verdade se está a atraiçoar essa mesma realidade que se pretende documentar, pois na opção por uma fotografia (pseudo) documentarista ou uma fotografia-verdade, o indivíduo se vai não só confinar ao campo da mera descritividade, mas, sobretudo, ignorar que essa descritividade não é mais do que uma redundância que não merece “revisitação”.