Huxley-Parlour Gallery presents 40 photographs by Cecil Beaton. They trace the artist’s career from his earliest series, including the surrealist “Bright Young Things” from the 1920s, to his photographs of his fashion creations and portraits from the 1930s to the 1950s.
These are intelligent and poetic mental serenades, the fruit of an exceptional eye. Each photograph certainly comes from the hand and the mind, but all within various settings concocted by this exceptional creator.
The visible gives way to visibility, which is more important. The “given” forms are transformed by subordinating the visual syntax to an evocative power and according to “operations of innocence” more cunning than it seems and which call for the protection of the dream over reality even when it comes to showing models. Fashion photography takes its liberty here but perhaps also its raison d’être since it is no longer simply a matter of reporting reality but rather dreams.
It was already in his bed during his insomnia, between dreams, nightmares, and waking hours, that the artist searched for themes, constructed his projects, and sought angles for scenarios. When necessary, he deconstructed reality so that the use of the world, like fashion, took on new meaning and thus transformed itself into a reminder of surrealist photography (Man Ray, Claude Cahun).
The apparent dissolves into a visual chant that addresses the visible: photography resonates in its space and establishes itself within concrete, tangible objects.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Cecil Beaton, “Online Viewing Room”, Huxley Parlour, London, until September 18.
In addition to the online exhibition, an exhibition of prints will be on view at the gallery from July 1 to September 18.
Huxley-Parlour
3-5 Swallow Street
London W1B 4DE
www.huxleyparlour.com
https://viewingroom.huxleyparlour.com/cecil-beaton/
