Author Description

In his photographs, Gregory Crewdson (born in 1962 in Brooklyn, New York) presents artfully condensed stories that essentially deal with the penetration of the mysterious into normalcy. In an image from his Twilight series (1998-2002), we see yellow school buses parked outside white wooden houses. Groups of students stand or lie around passively in different places. An idyllic scene, but only at first glance, as the image seems oddly "uncanny" in the Freudian sense. It shows something familiar yet unsettling, different, and somewhat inexplicable. What is really happening here? Crewdson goes to great lengths in dramatizing his disturbing suburban scenes, employing means more typical of Hollywood film productions. Using elaborate lighting, cranes, props, and extras, he stages his scenes, which are at the same time always an accurate portrayal of everyday life in America, with obsessive attention to detail. This publication is the first to assemble all of the artist's photographic productions in a single volume and includes his most recent, previously unpublished series Beneath the Roses.