Artist Critique

Gregory Crewdson’s Twilight series (1998-2002) consists of forty photographs which depict American suburbia and the mysterious, often disturbing, events that take place at twilight. In creating what he calls ‘frozen moments’, Crewdson elaborately stages and shoots these photographs at twilight. The decision to do so effectively produces a tension that serves to transform the suburban landscape into a place of wonder, anxiety and fantasy. All the images suggest twilight as a poetic condition. It is a metaphor for, and backdrop to, uncanny events that momentarily rupture the security of one’s familiar domain. His photography is not about so much about an exact representation of the truth, but rather as a dramatization of something which ought to have remained hidden.

In Crewdson’s work, the meaning and intent is kept just out of reach. The photographs are both easy to interpret and very difficult at the same time. "My photographs are about the moment of transition between before and after," he explains in his book. "Twilight is evocative of that. There's something magical about the condition." The deeper you comprehend each image, the more unsettling it becomes. You find you have to look for longer, taking in all the surreal dreamlike and haunting visions. There is only a pervading sense of something else unexplained going on outside the confines of the photograph. These enigmatic photographs catch the mysterious moment of time between before and after, revealing unknowable or unimaginable aspects of domestic reality. What came before and is coming after so, in effect, the purpose of showing the transition of before and after has, for me, been achieved.

This series is an extraordinary technical accomplishment, and at the end of the book, the production notes and credits give some indication of the many people who were involved in the creation of these images. His productions have become increasingly ambitious; the photographs require dozens of assistants and technicians, large format cameras, an array of lights, make-up and wardrobe, as well as computerized post-production. From a technical view point these richly metaphorical installations are immaculate and beautifully constructed to the highest standard. The final exhibition prints are 48x60” digital chromogenic archive prints mounted on 1/16” aluminium with a lustre surface. Every detail of these images is comprehensively articulated, in particular the lighting. In some instances, the effect of twilight is entirely artificially created. In others, special effects and extra lighting, such as artificial rain or dry ice, were used to heighten the natural moment of twilight. Nearly every picture has a very distinctive use of light, giving what could have appeared ludicrous an aura of wonder and realism. 

In particular, I would like to reference Untitled, Plate 6. Most literally, Plate 6 is an image of a woman in her dining room, kneeling on a bed of flowers. The kitchen itself appears to have been transformed into some kind of greenhouse; hot, humid and flowers are growing in abundance. The woman is the focal point in the image as she is centred into the middle of the frame. Dirt covers her legs while her body is covered in sweat. The dark toned image is illuminated by extra-terrestrial shafts of light shining through the windows. The light bounces off the surfaces to create a wraithlike atmosphere and sense of mystery. Her face appears as calm as still water, yet underneath there is great emotional turbulence. It is striking, and to an extent unnerving, that she seems dislocated from her current surrounding with a motionless body, which adds to the impression of the walking dead. I perceive her as being possessed. So I question, when day turned to night, did something compel her ordinary routines to undergo strange transformations? In some respects, I feel that the moment of twilight was the trigger—it was the catalyst. Twilight then is perhaps a moment that allows the unreal to slip into reality.  

These eerie pictures seem to tell a story, but the viewer can only guess what it is. It could potentially be about the interruption of small town values, the tension within families or the power of nature. The images' focus is on ordinary people coping with strange events. It is hard to assign any particular meaning to this collection, and different viewers will assign their own interpretations of crewdson’s work.

Crewdson's photographs pertain to particular complexities found in contemporary photography discourse today. In different ways, his work questions and challenges photography's relationship to truth while simultaneously depending on photography's ability to faithfully record and document. These images are carefully orchestrated events that challenge our very notions of familiarity, as they undermine our sense of certainty. These eerie and evocative photographs pair beauty with horror, fascination with disgust, and the real with the surreal. Subsequently the photographs effectively explore and unveil the transformative quality and the in-between-ness which exists at twilight.