Collier Schorr

Last updated

Collier Schorr (born 1963 as Patrice) is an American artist and fashion photographer best known for adolescent portraits that blend photographic realism with elements of fiction and youthful fantasy. [1]

Contents

Schorr grew up in Queens, New York [2] and studied journalism at the School of Visual Arts. In the 1980s and 1990s she also worked actively as an art critic. [1] Her photography work was featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and the 2003 International Center for Photography Triennial. In 2008 she received a Berlin Prize by the American Academy in Berlin. Collier Schorr is represented by Stuart Shave/Modern Art, [3] London and 303 Gallery, New York. She currently resides in Brooklyn and spends her summers with family in Schwäbisch Gmünd, in Southern Germany. [4]

Her work explores a multitude of themes, including history, nationality, and war, with an emphasis on identity and gender. [5] Her influences include Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, and Laurie Simmons, along with German and Jewish social history, World War II, wrestling, [6] painter Andrew Wyeth, and German photographer August Sander.

Early work

From the beginning of her photography career in 1986 to about 2014, Schorr's work was primarily seen in a number of solo exhibitions, along with published books to aid in further exploration of various overarching themes.

By incorporating documentary, fantasy, and an occasional interweaving of different media, Schorr dissected the concepts behind identity politics in an age of feminism. She was heavily influenced by the androgyny of 1980s fashion, and utilized the momentum it generated to create art that drew upon elements of fashion photography while also interrogating other cultural boundaries. Though her recent work is featured in fashion magazines, her earlier photographs would easily fit there as well.

There I Was, a gallery show at the 303 Gallery in New York and book released in 2009, is a perfect example of Schorr's abilities to push the limits of medium and perspective. Drawing on her experience with the drag car racer Charlie Snyder and his surprising death in Vietnam, Schorr questions everything regarding reportage, memory, and the inability to recreate the past. She combines drawings, photos, and cut-up magazines to create a collage of information that conveys her thoughts about the disconnect between the photograph, the viewer, and the subject. [7]

Ultimately, Schorr's early work represents her exploration of feminism, identity, sexuality, and gender during a period wherein these concepts were being questioned on a larger cultural scale. Through her personal touches and combination of media, Schorr exalts the underrepresented to find her own place in society.

Recent work

Although Schorr continues her exploration of adolescent androgyny, her photographic platform fully transitioned to fashion magazines by 2014. Her earliest fashion photography was featured in such publications as Purple Magazine and i-D , and focused on clothing rather than on artistic photography. [8] Her later photography would combine the two by utilizing popular culture icons. She recently photographed newly famous adolescent actors Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown for Dazed magazine, highlighting their physical similarities. [9] [10] Other pop culture icons Schorr has worked with include Timothée Chalamet, Janelle Monáe, and Jodie Foster, and further explores androgyny and removes the subject from stereotypical depictions of gender.

Schorr's work expresses a viewpoint that is neither masculine nor heterosexual. Much of her work comes from a place of altering perception, either looking deeper into what is considered normal or altering the usual context of an idea in order to create a commentary on the subject. [5]

In 2019, Collier Schorr received the Royal Photographic Society Award for Editorial, Advertising, and Fashion Photography, with an Honorary Fellowship of the Society.

Notable works

Jens F.

First exhibited at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and then featured at the 303 Gallery in New York in 2003, Jens F. features a myriad of photographs, sketches, and notes regarding the image of a young German boy. Using Andrew Wyeth's depictions of the model Helga from the late 20th century as a template, Schorr depicts male Jens as an androgynous and emotional figure. The obvious juxtaposition of genders and the boy's acknowledging gaze conveys the idea that modern sexuality is being challenged with confidence.

Forests and Fields

After living in the small town of Schwabisch Gmund, Germany for 12 years, Schorr has created Forests and Fields in order to explore the composition of the environment, its inhabitants, and herself. The collection was first presented as a complete exhibition at the 303 Gallery in 2001, focusing on images that varied from young boys dressed in Nazi uniforms to deliberately designed still-lifes of nature. In a nod toward August Sander's 1930s work, Schorr later expanded the project into multiple books, each focusing on a different aspect of her overall idea. [11]

Volume 1: Neighbors

Neighbors was published in 2006 as the first volume of Forests and Fields, and mainly focuses on ambiguous portraits. Schorr manipulates themes of nationality, identity, and history to create a scrapbook-like composition of images that toes the line between documentary and fantasy. [12] An exhibition titled Badischer Kunstverein took place in 2007 to accompany this volume. [13]

Volume 2: Blumen

Moving away from portraits, Blumen focuses on the German landscape. By manipulating small aspects about everyday natural objects, Schorr comments further on the relationships between the German town and the citizens themselves, all while adding in overtones of fantasy. [14]

Wrestlers

In 2002, Schorr visited Blairstown, New Jersey, and West Point, New York to photograph their wrestling teams in action. Her goal in capturing these images of vulnerability, struggle, and the pain was to reveal the undiscovered duality of wrestling. While being an undeniably masculine sport, it possesses romantic and feminine elements that push it into the realm of androgyny and gender fluidity. [6] Schorr hopes to compile the photos into an art book titled Wrestlers Love America in the future. [15]

8 Women

8 Women was exhibited at the 303 Gallery in 2014, consisting of 14 works of eight women accumulated over the past twenty years. [15] With a combination of headshots, full-body nudes, action poses, and a drawing, Schorr conveys a sense of feminine power that neither objectifies the subjects nor dates the photos. By consistently incorporating elements of fashion photography, Schorr is able to comment on how representation and hyper-sexualization functions in both fashion and feminist culture today. [16]

Publications

Solo exhibitions

Collections

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berenice Abbott</span> American photographer (1898–1991)

Berenice Alice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her portraits of cultural figures of the interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science interpretation of the 1940s to the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juergen Teller</span> German fine-art and fashion photographer (born 1964)

Juergen Teller is a German fine-art and fashion photographer. He was awarded the Citibank Prize for Photography in 2003 and received the Special Presentation International Center of Photography Infinity Award in 2018.

Tina Barney is an American photographer best known for her large-scale, color portraits of her family and close friends in New York and New England. She is a member of the Lehman family.

Guy Bourdin, was a French artist and fashion photographer known for his highly stylized and provocative images. From 1955, Bourdin worked mostly with Vogue as well as other publications including Harper's Bazaar. He shot ad campaigns for Chanel, Charles Jourdan, Pentax and Bloomingdale's.

Joel Sternfeld is an American fine-art photographer. He is best known for his large-format color pictures of contemporary American life and identity. His work contributed to the establishment of color photography as a respected artistic medium. Furthering the tradition of roadside photography started by Walker Evans in the 1930s, Sternfeld documents people and places with unexpected excitement, despair, tenderness, and hope. Ever since the 1987 publication of his landmark “American Prospects,” Sternfeld’s work has interwoven the conceptual and political, while being steeped in history, landscape theory and his passion for the passage of the seasons. Sternfeld’s is a beautiful and sad portrait of America - ironic, lyrical, unfinished, seeing without judging.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Shore</span> American photographer

Stephen Shore is an American photographer known for his images of scenes and objects of the banal, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. His books include Uncommon Places (1982) and American Surfaces (1999), photographs that he took on cross-country road trips in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Graham (photographer)</span> English photographer

Paul Graham is a British fine-art and documentary photographer. He has published three survey monographs, along with 26 other dedicated books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Wessel Jr.</span> American photographer and educator (1942–2018)

Henry Wessel was an American photographer and educator. He made "obdurately spare and often wry black-and-white pictures of vernacular scenes in the American West".

Glen Luchford is a British fashion photographer and film director. He lives and works in Venice, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alec Soth</span> American photographer

Alec Soth is an American photographer, based in Minneapolis. Soth makes "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States. New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a "photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers" and photographs "loners and dreamers". His work tends to focus on the "off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America" according to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth. He is a member of Magnum Photos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Demand</span> German sculptor and photographer

Thomas Cyrill Demand is a German sculptor and photographer. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He makes photographs of three-dimensional models that look like real images of rooms and other spaces, often sites loaded with social and political meanings. Demand thus describes himself not as a photographer, but as a conceptual artist for whom photography is an intrinsic part of his creative process.

Jim Goldberg is an American artist and photographer, whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saul Leiter</span> American photographer and painter (1923–2013)

Saul Leiter was an American photographer and painter whose early work in the 1940s and 1950s was an important contribution to what came to be recognized as the New York school of photography.

Rosalind Fox Solomon is an American photographer based in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miles Aldridge</span> English fashion photographer (born 1964)

Miles Aldridge is a British fashion photographer and artist.

Roe Ethridge is a postmodernist commercial and art photographer, known for exploring the plastic nature of photography – how pictures can be easily replicated and recombined to create new visual experiences. He often adapts images that have already been published, adding new, sculpted simulations of reality, or alternatively creates highly stylized versions of classical compositions, such as a still life bowl of moldy fruit which appeared on the cover of Vice magazine, or landscapes and portraits with surprising elements. After participating in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, his work has been collected by several leading public museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Tate Modern. In 2010, his work was included in the MoMA's 25th Anniversary New Photography exhibit.

Torbjørn Rødland is a Norwegian photographic artist, whose images are saturated with symbolism, lyricism, and eroticism. His 2017 Serpentine Gallery solo exhibition was titled The Touch That Made You and travelled to the Fondazione Prada in Milan in 2018. His work was shown at the Venice Biennale of 1999. An early retrospective was held at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martine Fougeron</span> French-American photographer

Martine Fougeron is a French-American photographer based in New York City. Her work has been exhibited and published extensively, and collected by numerous major museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Fougeron has published one monograph to date: Nicolas et Adrien – A World with Two Sons, published by Steidl in 2019.

Bertien van Manen was a Dutch photographer. She started her career as a fashion photographer, after having studied French and German languages and literature. Inspired by Robert Frank's The Americans she travelled around, photographing what she saw. She had her first exhibition in The Photographers' Gallery in London in 1977 and since then her work has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur. Van Manen's work is found in major public collections.

Vinca Petersen is a British photographer and artist, living on the Isle of Skye. Her photography book No System documents her life in the 1990s, travelling around Europe with sound systems, putting on free parties. Petersen's work has been shown in group exhibitions at Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary and Saatchi Gallery, and is held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, London and Arts Council Collection.

References

  1. 1 2 "Collier Schorr - Conversation taken from TTA9 - SS 2015 – THE TRAVEL ALMANAC". 2015-12-22. Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  2. ↑ "Collier Schorr". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  3. ↑ "Collier Schorr". modernart.net. Retrieved 2021-02-17..
  4. ↑ "COLLIER SCHORR in conversation with THOMAS DEMAND | 032c Workshop". 032c Workshop. 2008-07-01. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  5. 1 2 Ribbat, Christoph (2001). "Queer and Straight Photography". Amerikastudien / American Studies. 46 (1): 27–39. JSTOR   41157626.
  6. 1 2 ""Wrestlers Love America" — Art21". Art21. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  7. ↑ "Collier Schorr - PUBLICATIONS - 303 Gallery". www.303gallery.com. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  8. ↑ "#WHM Collier Schorr". Musée Magazine. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  9. ↑ Dazed. "Finn Wolfhard – Winter 2016". Dazed. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  10. ↑ Dazed (2016-11-22). "Millie Bobby Brown on chats with Winona and channelling ET". Dazed. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  11. ↑ "Gil Blank and Collier Schorr in Conversation". www.gilblank.com. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  12. ↑ www.bibliopolis.com. "Collier Schorr: Forest and Fields, Volume 1: Neighbors/Nachbarn SIGNED by Collier SCHORR on Vincent Borrelli, Bookseller". Vincent Borrelli, Bookseller. Archived from the original on 2018-04-29. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  13. ↑ "Collier Schorr - PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS - 303 Gallery". www.303gallery.com. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  14. ↑ Blumen by Collier Schorr.[ permanent dead link ]
  15. 1 2 Meter, William Van (2014-03-12). "When Fashion Meets Art". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  16. ↑ "Collier Schorr, 8 Women @303 - Collector Daily". Collector Daily. 2014-03-25. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  17. ↑ Collier Schorr Archived 2021-03-04 at the Wayback Machine , burgercollection.org.
  18. ↑ Search results for "Schorr", fsrr.org.
  19. ↑ Sculpture from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum.
  20. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, Henry Art Gallery.
  21. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, Museum of Modern Art.
  22. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, North Carolina Museum of Art.
  23. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, Rubell Family Collection.
  24. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
  25. ↑ Collier Schorr's works (Search for "Schorr"), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
  26. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, Walker Art Center.
  27. ↑ Collier Schorr's works, Whitney Museum of American Art.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.