American photographer Tyler Shields and British artist Max Wiedemann fuse their creative talents in a new exhibition entitled Well Hung, which sees the coming together of photography, art and celebrity culture in an unexpectedly provocative way.
Their creative collaboration confronts a society obsessed with media, money and celebrity by presenting many of young Hollywood’s prominent stars, including Mischa Barton, Twilight and Glee actresses, and the heavily featured Lindsay Lohan, in suggestive – and often compromising – situations. One photograph sees Lohan bearing a carving knife with blood splattered across her semi-naked body, and another depicts Twilight’s Ashley Greene tied to a railway track in the path of an oncoming train. This all sounds rather violent, but at the same time Shields’ photographs are consciously stylised and beautifully shot, as if aware of their photo-shoot status, so that they are impactful in a way that doesn’t overly disturb.
And where Shields photographs, Wiedeman adapts; subverting Shields’ already confrontational images to further underline a message. With an aim to “create works which contain more truth than the original image,” Wiedemann seeks to critique modern consumerism and excess by injecting humorous, punchy slogans into his images (“Money talks and has nothing to say,”), and presents the glamorous, rich subjects in a colourful, street art-esque way – as though bringing them to a universally ‘accessible’ level.
The exhibition is definitely well worth a visit, and runs until 14th November 2011 at the Imitate Modern gallery in London.
