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subscribe to style file blog via RSSclayton cubitt’s empire of dirt
July 24, 2008 3:08 pm
Film is said to capture fleeting moments. But while it can crystallize an ephemeral image, the medium itself is as fragile as flesh. This off-putting contradiction underlines the powerful and piquant art of New Orleans-raised, New York-based photographer Clayton Cubitt. Cubitt buries his clean and crisp fashion photos, portraits, and pornographic images in earth, where natural decay eats into the imagery, creating a disquieting counterpoint to our efforts to fight mortality. The work he’s showing in “This Eclectic Explosion,” a group show curated by Peter Miszuk at the Tribeca Grand hotel, has an added layer of personal and political poignancy. “The more recent work, the personal and the fashion work,” he reveals, “where I’m literally degrading the quality of the image—injuring it, damaging it—is a result of Hurricane Katrina, what it’s done with New Orleans, and what it’s done with my family. It’s that notion of beauty—not in spite of decay but because of decay. It becomes so horribly beautiful that you can’t look away.”
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