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Fam. / 2001 is a series of 26 photographs and a publication. Fam. explores the representation of the concept of family. In individual portraits a family stages herself in their own surroundings.

October 14 - November 12, 2005 Opening:Friday, October 14 from 6-8 pm

LMAKprojects (Chelsea)
526 West 26th Street # 310
New York, NY 10001

www.lmakprojects.com

Press Release- lmakprojects
LMAKprojects is pleased to present Sara Blokland's first solo-show in New York, entitled Fam. Abstract. "Fam." is an abbrevation, used in the Netherlands as an heading to address a family.

Fam Abstract is a series of portraits of members of a same family, in which each person is photographed individually in the family's shared indoor environment. The portraits present staged situations based on the individuals' natural poses, postures and personal boundaries, in order to reveal their self-image.

With this series the artist attempt to explore the physical relations between the family members, their bodies, and their poses. The photographs, which are mainly enlarged Polaroids, are taken without direct contact between the camera and the subject. The individuals appear to be lost, disconnected, or even alienated from each other. The family relations are rebuilt through the unique size differentiation of the prints and their arrangement on the walls of the gallery, which almost resembles a page in a family photo album.

Also on view is Blokland's latest project: Father’s Paradise, which is a selection of more than forty images of a garden. In the middle there is a man, the owner of the garden. Over the past ten years he photographed his garden. In Father's Paradise Blokland researches the role and esthetics of a personal archive.

Sara Blokland's work forces the viewer into the narrow space between voyeurism and real intimacy, and thus it is brutally honest and even explicit. She examines the way photography and video witness events, and investigates to what extent images derive their meaning from the context in which they have been created, what are the roles that certain aspects such as 'pose' and 'privacy' play in the interpretation of the spectator, and what is the meaning of photographic ‘credibility’ of images.

 

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