Duane Michals
DUANE MICHALS
From May 4 to July 29 1, 2018
An artist balancing photography and poetry, Duane Michals (McKeesport, Pennsylvania, 1932) is one of the most prestigious names of the American avant-garde. In the sixties he raised a new approach to photography that did not pretend to document the facts or the "truth, but to deal with the metaphysical aspects of life. Through very personal work and extraordinary originality, Duane Michals has blurred the boundaries between photography and other disciplines such as poetry or painting, becoming one of the artists who has renewed the photographic language with greater intensity during the last sixty years.
In an era marked by photojournalism, he rejected the limitations of that genre and approached cinematographic narrative through the use of carefully constructed photographic sequences. He also went beyond the limits of the medium, incorporating manuscript texts on his handwritten copies that add a deeper dimension to his photographs. With an uncomplicated technique, lighting and very careful scenography, he approaches the great questions of humanity, and in many occasions through play and irony.
With these elements he also builds his portraits, in which he tries to reflect not so much the physicality of his models but rather their identity and the elements that best characterize them. Through the medium and the subjects he addresses, his personality, concern, and sense of humor overflow all his works.