Hellen van Meene
New Work
Project Gallery: Laura Letinsky
February 2 – March 17, 2007
Reception for the Artists: Thursday, February 1, 6-8 pm
The Yancey Richardson Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new photographs
by Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene. Known for her intimate, intense portraits of
adolescent girls and androgynous boys, this is van Meene’s first exhibition in the United
States since 2001. These recent portraits are primarily the result of travels to Latvia,
Russia, London, Japan and Morocco between 2004 and 2006. A survey of recent work
by the artist is currently on view at the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany and in
November 2006, Schirmer/Mosel published the monograph New Work. In addition, van
Meene is featured in the exhibition Family Pictures, opening February 2007 at the
Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Having previously worked with models she knew, van Meene’s recent work was made
with strangers, primarily in their own environments: students at their school in St.
Petersburg, teenage mothers at home in London, Tokyo youth on the street, and girls in
a village plaza in Morocco. Acknowledging the transformative potential of photography,
van Meene has described her subjects as the raw material for her own creations, stating
in a 2002 interview for the Museum of Contemporary Photography catalog, "I look for a
certain mood in which the girls almost figure as actors. As a matter of fact, I treat my
models as objects which you can direct and guide." The current work is less fictionalized
and more direct than previously, evidencing less of the performance quality of her earlier
portraits. The models are now placed against flat planes of color in unadorned
environments and without props. The photographs are nonetheless filled with closely
observed details and subtle, expressive gestures, many of which Van Meene has added
or directed. Intimately scaled (12 x 12 or 16 x 16 inches) and pressed close to the
picture plane, van Meene's portraits invite and reward scrutiny at close range.
Born in Alkmaar, Holland in 1972, van Meene has exhibited internationally and her work
is held in the collections of major museums including the Stedelijk Museum, the Victoria
& Albert Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, MoCA Los Angeles, the Guggenheim
Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2001 she was nominated for the
Citibank Photography Prize. Previous publications include Hellen van Meene: Portraits
(Aperture, 2004) and Hellen van Meene: Japan Series (The Museum of Contemporary
Photography, Chicago and De Hallen, Haarlem, the Netherlands, 2002).
|
return to artnet.com
