Sampling is the mode of the moment. In a sketchbook note from the early-’60s, Jasper Johns wrote, “Take an object, do something to it. Do something else to it.” It wasn’t a totally new idea in art, but when considered in the development of postmodernism and 21st century art that was made after art, that simple statement had a profound effect. Studying the visual terrain for a number of years, collector and curator Beth Rudin DeWoody not only saw examples of this theory in use, she realized the opportunity to motivate artists working with photography to take iconic images as their point of departure for new work.
The resulting exhibition, appropriately titled Inspired at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York, is a striking display of poetic, interpretive works by Terence Koh, Mickalene Thomas, Chris Verene, and others that shows what artists do best: investigate something and make it their own. For example, Jonah Fay-Hurwitz, Kyle DeWoody & Jordan Doner collaborated to create a twist on Annie Leibovitz’s famous photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono canoodling on the cover of Rolling Stone. In the Leibovitz picture, John was nude and Yoko was dressed; in the new image, Jonah is clothed and Kyle is naked.
In an earlier identity switch, Henry Garfunkel shot Cry Baby star Johnny Depp in a pile of hay back in 1989 to mimic George Hurrell’s iconic 1941 image of Jane Russell, when she was making The Outlaw. Likewise, photographer Mark Seliger turned Heidi Klum into a Jayne Mansfield look-alike to recreate an anonymous 1957 picture of Mansfield and Sophia Loren dining at Romanoffs in Beverly Hills for a 2002 magazine editorial spread. Meanwhile, one of the oddest pictures in the show is Eric Kroll’s Homage to Man Ray, a 1999 black-and-white photo of two nearly nude women sitting on a bed in only black gloves, necklaces, and books bound by stockings over their faces. It’s as surreal as anything Man ever made!
For a slideshow of images, click here
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