{"id":1021,"date":"2010-03-23T21:51:17","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T04:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1021"},"modified":"2016-08-20T17:31:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T00:31:55","slug":"double-your-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/23\/double-your-pleasure-1021\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Your Pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"
“Seeing Double” at Rooz Cafe, Oakland.<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
When I saw Johnny Depp’s pearly whites on the cover of February’s “GQ” at the grocery store checkout, I wondered what anthropologists of the future would\u00a0infer of the A-list leading men of my generation. Would they think\u00a0the\u00a0smarmy grin de rigueur,\u00a0o<\/em>r\u00a0realize that this one photo was an anomaly, a statistically insignificant\u00a0outlier compared to, say, Wayne Maser’s brooding JD circa 1990? Enter “Seeing Double,” in which Oakland photographers Becky Jaffe and Myles Boisen explore multiple facets of each model in a series of fifteen large-format photographic diptychs.<\/div>\n

I often see someone at Starbucks or the grocery store I would love to photograph, but I’m too chicken to do anything about it. Not so Jaffe and Boisen, who approached prospective models in cafes and on the street.\u00a0In a series of sittings that Boisen described as “very improvisational… play time,” the photographers experimented with costumes and props,\u00a0“not as a fashion statement, but rather as an improvising tool or exercise to draw new identities out of the models.”\u00a0Although the choice of poses and costuming were entirely the creative realm of the photographers, Jaffe graciously acknowledged that they “could not have made these images without the creative expression of [the models].”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Amanda\"

"Amanda"<\/p><\/div>\n

Jaffe has a knack for disarming her models. They let down their guard, appearing remarkably unselfconscious, and contemplative or joyful, allowing her to\u00a0capture their humanity unfiltered.\u00a0Boisen’s photos have more of a feeling that he is placing his models in a situation and infusing them with a persona he wishes to explore. A prime example is the diptych of Amanda. In Jaffe’s black-and-white take on the model, her eyes are closed, one hand over her face, the other palm up, beseeching. It is as though the model is anguishing over a decision about something abhorrent she must do. What that is\u00a0may be answered by Boisen’s complement: She wears a mask which smiles from beneath the hood of a fur-trimmed coat which she is\u00a0pulling open to reveal her breasts.<\/p>\n

Although Jaffe and Boisen seem comfortable in these approaches, some of their best work is created when they switch roles.\u00a0For example, Jaffe wrapped model\u00a0Jonah Blue\u00a0in rope and portrayed him\u00a0as a B&D practitioner flipping the bird and wearing his… well it’s not his heart that’s on his sleeve. This is contrasted with Boisen’s photo where\u00a0Blue is draped in\u00a0black cloth, appearing as a penitent monk, atoning for his perceived sins.<\/p>\n

In the most outstanding pairing, black-and-white photos of model Zolene, the artists switched roles in this way. Boisen’s\u00a0contribution is a\u00a0simple, straightforward, and understated portrait of the model with her eyes serenely closed. Jaffe on the other hand dressed\u00a0Zolene in\u00a0a boxer’s gloves and\u00a0robe over what appears to be a black silk teddy. This image, reminiscent of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos of Lisa Lyon,\u00a0is my pick for best of show. This is the same model whose image had lured me to the “Still (In) Motion<\/a>” exhibit, co-curated by Jaffe at Frisbie St.\u00a0She is gorgeous, sultry, and pouting, her eyes a little sad or, perhaps, seriously focused on the proverbial prize. She could rock your world, and she could totally kick your ass.\u00a0Jaffe manages to show\u00a0the\u00a0dichotomy in the subject within a single photo.<\/p>\n

\"\"

"Zolene"<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m a little bit of everything
\nall rolled into one.
\nI’m a bitch, I’m a lover
\nI’m a child, I’m a mother
\nI’m a sinner, I’m a saint
\nI do not feel ashamed.<\/p>\n

– Meredith Brooks, “Bitch”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Occasionally both photographers took a nearly identical approach with a model. For example, their provocative portraits of\u00a0Tom have him wild haired and naked but for a pair of fishnet stockings, looking for all the world like Iggy Pop. (He was at the opening and seemed like a regular guy who’s just a really <\/em>good sport.)\u00a0One photo\u00a0was black-and-white, the other in color, one crisp, the other artfully blurred, but both essentially captured the same side of the coin. The pairing would have been more interesting if one was contrasted with something more subtle or demure, as in\u00a0Jan Saudek’s “With My Third Daughter from the Second Marriage”\u00a0 (1987) where the diptychs’ power derives from the counterpoint of the individuals taking turns being clothed, but seemingly unaware of their varying state of undress.<\/p>\n

It is more intriguing when the artists see the same model through radically different perspectives and follow disparate approaches.\u00a0A standout diptych is the photos of Martyn Jacques.\u00a0In both, the model is wearing identical clown makeup, but\u00a0that is where the similarity between the portraits ends. In Boisen’s photo,\u00a0Jacques has donned dirty clothes and sports an accordion. Pointing off camera, he smiles maniacally, with an overall effect that would make\u00a0John Waters proud. In Jaffe’s portrait, Jacques has traded his accordion for a tie and suspenders. Leaning into the camera and jabbing his finger at the viewer instead, he is all business, a no-nonsense interrogator, an unnerving cross between Dennis Franz and\u00a0John Wayne Gacy.<\/p>\n

\"Martyn\"

"Martyn Jacques" (and detail)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

"Jessik"<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some individual standouts, where the diptych did not necessarily succeed in expressing diversity but one of the photos\u00a0merits particular attention. One of these is\u00a0Boisen’s photo of Jessik. The model’s image appears to have been warped by a fun-house mirror. But unlike their photos of\u00a0Stephanie Laursen, where the model’s eyes were stretched and reflected in similar fashion, here it\u00a0does not seem like a gimmick; the composition is interesting, the colors bold and luminous, and the model–while recognizable as beautiful–has been transmogrified into an eerie likeness\u00a0of Dali’s “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)” (1936).<\/p>\n

Another individual achievement is Jaffe’s portrait of Clementine Shaughnessy, which she also exhibited in “Still (In) Motion” under the title “Taggert.”\u00a0Her eyes closed, palms pressed together at her lips, one gets the impression of intruding upon a private moment. As I wrote of that show, her photos “consistently but ambiguously convey their subjects\u2019 emotional intensity. What are they feeling? Bliss? Passion? Pain?”<\/p>\n

What are they feeling? What are we<\/em> feeling? Bliss? Passion? Pain? Yes, we are.<\/p>\n

These 13×19 archival prints\u00a0are modestly priced at $100 each unframed, and $160 framed. Pricing for the diptychs is available upon inquiry. “Seeing Double” runs through April 4th at Rooz Cafe, 1918 Park Blvd, Oakland.<\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Seeing Double” at Rooz Cafe, Oakland. \u00a0 When I saw Johnny Depp’s pearly whites on the cover of February’s “GQ” at the grocery store checkout, I wondered what anthropologists of the future would\u00a0infer of the A-list leading men of my generation. Would they think\u00a0the\u00a0smarmy grin de rigueur,\u00a0or\u00a0realize that this one photo was an anomaly, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,4],"tags":[101,53,69,108,102,64,106,1077,109],"class_list":["post-1021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","category-raves","tag-becky-jaffe","tag-clowns","tag-frisbie-st","tag-jan-saudek","tag-myles-boisen","tag-oakland","tag-robert-mapplethorpe","tag-salvador-dali","tag-tiger-lillies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-gt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5484,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions\/5484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}