Synopsis
David Hilliard's vibrant color photographs, usually triptychs or larger compositions, present elaborate narratives exploring a range of themes and situations, from the awkwardness of adolescence to masculinity disarmed. Formally, these staged photographs share the style of contemporary photographers like Gregory Crewdson and Anna Gaskell, among others. Yet Hilliard draws less from the realm of the fantastic and instead looks to his immediate surroundings to draw inspiration, as he deftly fuses autobiography with fiction to engage a host of complex ideas.
This lush monograph is the first major publication of Hilliard's work. Included are works from the artist's ongoing series of his father that demonstrate Hilliard's ability to tangle fact with fiction as the resulting images, underscored by the artist's wry outlook on the world, convey a distinct poignancy. Other works engage issues of intimacy, homoeroticism, and identity. The resulting scenes are as often elegiac as they are comical, always orchestrated with precision, and with a marriage of form and content that work together to immerse the viewer in the visual narrative.
Library Journal
Aperture's expertise in photography publishing is on display in this elegant first monograph by Hilliard (photography, Yale Univ.). Curator Cotton's brief introductory essay and an interview with critic Vince Aletti bookend the real story: more than 50 of Hilliard's arresting color images, which deliver a single scene in multiple frames. This suspension of the image accentuates early experiments in film and Hilliard's insistence that no matter how intimate the subject matter-and he often invades the privacy of friends, strangers, lovers, and family (particularly his father)-distance is always palpable. Thematic narratives of sexuality, consumerism, and voyeurism drive this uneven collection, which occasionally feels insipid and forced. Hilliard's work is strongest and most exciting when it crosses some liminal surface to surprise us: peeping into a window in Dad or at the rippling horizon while two figures skinny dip in Rising, both from 1998. A good choice for photography enthusiasts or larger contemporary art collections.-Prudence Peiffer, Cambridge, MA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.