In The Studio is the first exhibition of the British photographer Richard Learoyd in an American museum but he is not unknown in the United States since an exhibition last April in the Pace/McGill gallery in New York was devoted to him and the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco will be showing his work next January. In The Studio concentrates mainly on portraits made by the photographer in his studio and it’s without doubt his way of working that fascinated the exhibition’s curators. Indeed, Learoyd’s photographs are unique, made with a camera obscura the size of a room, full size. The process has been around for centuries and it recalls the early techniques of photographic reproduction at the end of the 1830s. Richard Learoyd’s studio is less traditional: once exposed, the paper is immediately inserted into a colour processor and the process takes about twenty minutes.
Certainly, we understand the fascination of unique prints and their size, that approach 150cm x 120cm, but there is an insistent marketing around these portraits that prevents them from being seen for themselves. It’s as if “Richard Learoyd” has become “of Richard Learoyd” and it’s a form of failure to label a work in this way : in the end the views of the critics and the gallery owners have got the better of his work. Moreover, it sets up a natural resistance in us, as if photography were only a reproduction process. At the time of Instagram, we understand the importance given to the use of the camera obscura but let’s not forget that In The Studio accompanies the Real/Ideal exhibition on the French primitives for whom the intention is exactly the opposite: it’s in the pushing of the technology that photography asserts itself as art.
These portraits float in a disturbing atmosphere and it’s without doubt the blue tones and the darkening effect in the corners that accentuate the feeling of uneasiness. The vignetting has another effect, perhaps even more important, which is to transform the viewer into a voyeur; we have the impression of being caught out watching the people without their knowing and we surprise ourselves by going through the exhibition’s few rooms at a sustained speed, in order not to be caught in the act. These photographs impose their own rhythm, this is undoubtedly one of the most important things about the exhibition, but we would have liked to stand and gaze at Richard Learoyd’s other images (and not only at this damned pink flamingo) like his landscapes and his still lifes, which are absent from the exhibition and are just as magnificent. The subjects are all beautiful, the poses are hieratic, they look lost, they are waiting, submissive, but the photographer plays skilfully with the fuzziness and the focussing. In the end, these portraits hide more than they reveal.
Hugo Fortin
Hugo Fortin is a photography critic based in New York.
Richard Learoyd : In the Studio
Until 27thNovember 2016
Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA
USA
