Collier Schorr 303 Gallery Exhibition Catalog

Collier Schorr
Collier Schorr 303 Gallery Exhibition Catalog

Photographs: Collier Schorr

Text: Massimilano Gionni

Publisher: 303 Gallery

32 pages

Year: 2004

Comments: Softcover, 24 x 19.7 cm. In excellent condition apart from a small mark on the cover.

Catalog for the exhibition "Collier Schorr" at 303 Gallery in New York, winter 2004.

In her current body of work, intentionally untitled, Collier Schorr documents the movements and expressions of a group of young performers. For the past three years she has been following this group of wrestlers, noting each ritual, each motion, as they engaged in almost ascetic forms of self-discipline.

Weaving in-between up to 40 bodies at one time, these pictures were all taken in a matter minutes. Schorr found that a combination of light and shadow could erase locale, creating photographs that focus on intense and private expressionism.

Schorr has always been interested in the appearance of male dominance, but for her, this project became less and less about gender. “I was the only woman in the room, but after a time, the bodies became neutral, more flesh than men. The practice room was a place to observe a kind of physical contact and exertion that actually brought about the appearance of spiritual transcendence. I wanted to examine bodies as forms outside of popular cultural motif’s, almost nude, constantly moving in both structured and unconscious ways.

While Schorr’s portraits, still lives and mis-en-scenes, can be linked to heroic painting, they are the moments that pre-date painting, flesh before it is rendered, almost alive, each gesture and expression a further discovery.