Monday Blog 8/30/10

Pieter Hugo

Hugo's series Hyena & Other Men really spoke to me about domestication, dominance, codependence, and submission. I think his work relates to mine due to the pride and shamelessness the owners of the hyena and baboons display. As well as their attempts to domesticate or train these wild animals and make them submissive to their power. There is a play on affection and doting vs. brutality and cruelty.

BIOGRAPHY
Pieter Hugo was born in 1976 and grew up in Cape Town, where he continues to live. He underwent a two-year residency in 2002-3 at Fabrica in Treviso, Italy. Recent solo shows have taken place at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York (2010); Le Chateau d'Eau in Toulouse, France (2010); the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney, Australia (2009), and Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam (2008). Group exhibitions include The Endless Renaissance, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida (2009); Street & Studio: An urban history of photography at Tate Modern, London (2008); An Atlas of Events at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2007); and the 27th São Paulo Bienal (2006). He won first prize in the Portraits section of the 2006 World Press Photo competition, and was the Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art in 2007. In 2008 Hugo was the winner of the KLM Paul Huf Award and the Arles Discovery Award at the Rencontres d'Arles Photography Festival in France.

QUOTES

"Although each group stands as a unique subculture, both encapsulate man’s exploitative relationship with nature, as well as the tenuous, and often dangerous, existence of those who occupy the margins of the global economy."

Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/art/25452/pieter-hugo-the-hyena-and-other-men#ixzz0y7ehneZV

Moral questions arise. Do Mr. Hugo's pictures exoticize ''the other?'' Do they condone the mistreatment of animals? It is partly that disquieting feeling of flirting with the forbidden that makes these photographs so hard to look away from.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E1DF1339F93BA15751C1A9619C8B63

INTERVIEW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWtrKd5biA

GALLERIES

MICHAEL STEVENSON GALLERY
Ground floor, Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, 7925, Cape Town, ZA
T: +27 21 462 1500


YOSSI MILO GALLERY
525 West 25th Street,New York, NY 10001, USA
T: +1 212 414 0370


GALLERIA EXTRASPAZIO
via San Francesco di Sales 16/a, I - 00165, Roma, Italy
T: +39 06 682 10655


COKKIE SNOEI
Mauritsweg 55, 3012 JX Rotterdam
T: +31 10 41 29 274

Hazenstraat 11, 1016 SM, Amsterdam
T: +31 20 42 33 807

WEBSITE:

http://www.pieterhugo.com/