Customer Reviews

Anna Gaskell

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anna Gaskell recently put up an exhibition in my school's art gallery, and I was simply floored. The vibrancy of her photos are what originally attracted me, and are still the most striking part of the photos, and the drawings are just creepy enough to keep a high-schooler such as myself interested. But when I picked up this book, the meaning behind the photos becomes clearer. Gaskell has created several photo essays with not only incredible tone, lighting, and subjects, but she also has a fine theory behind her pictures: of being uncomfortable with an adolescent body, the pressure of pre-teens, and the weirdier sides of Alice In Wonderland.

I'll admit I haven't had very long to think about why I like Gaskell's work so much - I just got home from the exhibit - but I highly recommend her, not just aesthetically but for the thoughts behind them.

I must say , I have to dissagree with this book's negative review. Her photographs are intensly luscious, colorful and eerily composed. I know about Gregory Crewdson and have seen his book Twilight, which is very interesting as well, but this work taps into an entirely different type of energy that is well described in the positive review. That is, Gregory Crewdson works in one realm of the subconscious and Gaskell works on another. Of course, art is highly subjective, I recommend everyone look into both her photographs, and those of Gregory crewdson and buy the book according to their own tastes.

Gaskell's work is rather boring and dreary. Riffing on earlier precedents (most notably Sherman, even if this is not "self portraiture" per se) Gaskell's tableaux reek of a rather vapid revisitation of staged scenario a la her Yale professor and one time boyfriend Gregory Crewdson (check out his book on amazon.com "Twilight," and you'll see exactly what I mean) combined with a weak attempt at some kind of feminized fairy tale world gone wrong. Technically, the work is adequate, but cmon. is this the best that art world photographers in their 30s have to offer? If so, its going to be a long, dry spell, indeed.