Description:
The Saatchi Gallery, a great supporter and advocate of contemporary art, reveals a collection of work that interprets the modern world around us. I Am a Camera presents primarily photographic work organized into three themes: "True Life Adventures," "Fiction and Artifice," and "Places Portraits Still Lives Tableaux." This collection highlights the importance of photography in contemporary art: "Within a brief space of time photography challenged the authority of painting to report the world or look at its own history. Photography has come a long way from its humble origins of documentary ordinariness. A form that was not worthy to be called art ... has been radically transformed." Some of the works included are from emerging and unknown artists, while most are full-fledged art stars. Sam Taylor-Wood's panoramic views of contemporary domestic life; Jessica Craig-Martin's cropped close-ups of high-society social life revealing nameless wrinkles and age spots on the rich and famous; Andreas Gursky's exaggerated images of urban existence, a sterile display of Nike sneakers or the endless grid of a hotel's balconies, show modern life with barely a trace of human existence. The works vary greatly, but each offers a compelling interpretation of how we live. The book includes an essay by Martin Maloney tying the artists' work together. --J.P. Cohen
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