
©Moby
Expositions du 23/10/2014 au 31/12/2015 Terminé
Emmanuel Fremin Gallery 547 West 27th Street, Suite 508 10001 New York États-Unis
Do not miss Moby's acclaimed photography exhibit Innocents, now entering its final days. Following a successful showing at Art Hamptons, Scope Miami and Contemporary Istanbul. Innocents has received rave reviews from leading art and news publications. Come by and enjoy Moby’s post-apocalyptic landscapes one last time before the exhibit closes on December 31st.Emmanuel Fremin Gallery 547 West 27th Street, Suite 508 10001 New York États-Unis
©Moby
©Moby
Moby’s latest series of photographs “Innocents”, now presented by Emmanuel Fremin Gallery, is based on the artist’s own theory that the Apocalypse has already happened. Tragic events influenced him. After September 11 – which coincidentally is also Moby’s birthday -, it was a global belief that “nothing will ever be the same again”, even if apparently most people’s lives didn’t radically change. Moby is interested in the potential shift in human perception. He considers that a post-apocalyptic consciousness invites people to add a new meaning to the common surrounding world: “Like a picture of a supermarket pre-apocalypse would somehow have a different significance post-apocalypse. Even though the supermarket itself would be the exact same thing.”
Starting from these premises, the artist imagined the “Cult of Innocents” as the world’s first post-apocalyptic cult. Unlike many historically recorded (pre-apocalyptic) cults, whose members prepared for the (upcoming) end of the world, trying to find a secret formula to protect themselves against it, Moby’s fictitious “Innocents” perform on a post-apocalyptic stage or even during the Apocalypse. As the artist confessed in an interview, in the creation of his characters he drew inspiration from The Source Family – the legendary and “benign” cult that was active in L.A. in the 1970’s. In his photographs, hybrid human-animal characters, with living human bodies, draped in white fabrics such as antique statues, and with skulls or animal masks instead of heads, populate a natural or artificial environment. They are reminiscent of both the magical atmosphere in “Alice in Wonderland” and the black humor scenes in “Tales from the Crypt”.
© Moby
At the other end of the leash, works like ‘Innocents’ and ‘A New Spring’ – also rendered in a curvilinear perspective, but featuring multiple ghost-like characters arranged in a seemingly ritualistic circle – address the issue of a possible return to a chimerical innocence, still present in the natural habitat of wild animals, but almost lost in the contemporary life of our fellows. In Moby’s opinion, the post-apocalyptic cult of innocence relies on the idea of personal and collective shame. His Innocents are ashamed because of “their role in a society and a culture that was just incredibly, unnecessarily destructive” and they “are doing everything in their power to conceal themselves”. Maybe that is why they are wearing masks. In this regard, the artist states: “there is a quality of innocence in everybody”.
Moby’s photographs are multi-layered. By using strange juxtapositions and decontextualized elements, the artist plays with the semiotic relationship signifier-signified in order to create works open to different interpretations. He only suggests a framework for each of his photographs and for the fictional narrative that connects them, but the conclusion – if there is one – belongs to the viewer.
From his mind-blowing music to his photographs related to self-directed videos, in terms of visual motifs, composition, and psychedelic colors, Moby defines himself as a multi-faceted artist, extremely emotional and rational at the same time.