Garage Center for Contemporary Culture presents Time Capsule, a video
installation by influential American fashion photographer Steven Klein, on view
from 17 November to 4 December 2011. Time Capsule (2011) celebrates Klein as an
artist whose work is equally suited to the pages of international fashion
magazines as it is presented on the walls of some of the world’s most respected
art galleries and museums. The installation continues Klein’s experimentation
with moving image through the depiction of the stages of one woman’s life,
played by model / actress Amber Valetta, until she reaches the age of
110.
With an academic background in painting, Klein first turned to photography to
express his visual ideas. He gained notoriety through fashion spreads in iconic
magazines such as Vogue and W, before becoming one of the most sought-after and
influential ‘anti-fashion’ fashion photographers of the last two decades. His
trademark highly-stylized, dramatic images injected a sense of foreboding,
danger, sadism and a touch of frisson into the polished, sexed-up world of
fashion and celebrity. Klein began working with video installations in 2002
during a collaborative project with Madonna, creating an installation that
combined images for video and still photography, presented at Deitch Projects
in New York in 2003. Since then, Klein has continued to explore the ambiguous
space between moving and still images, casting well-known figures from
celebrity culture in his surreal quasi-fictions.
Time Capsule is an exploration of the illusion of time. A woman projects
herself into an imagined future and creates the dynamic range of aging. Time
Capsule challenges our ideas and concepts of linear time, and of dimension; she
is aging in a realm that is timeless.
Artist’s Biography
Steven Klein’s work has been exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide,
including shows at Gagosian Gallery and Deitch Projects. He has been published
in several Conde Nast publications, such as Vogue. He has shot high-profile
advertising campaigns for clients including Alexander McQueen, Dolce &
Gabanna, and Dior. He currently lives and works in New York.
