Polly Borland Untitled XXIV – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition dates: 22nd September – 29th October 2011

Many thankx to Paul Kasmin Gallery for allowing me to publish the text and photographs in the posting. Each photograph has been printed in three editions (small: 44 x 38.5cm, edition of 3 plus 3 APs; medium: 76 x 65cm, edition of 6 plus 3 APs; and large-scale prints: 147.5 x 122cm, edition of 3 plus 3 APs).

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Untitled III
2010
C-print

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Untitled IV
2010
C-print

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Untitled XIII
2010
C-print

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Untitled XXXIV
2010
C-print

Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by Polly Borland from her Smudge series, curated by Danny Moynihan. Opening on September 22, 2011 at 511 W. 27th Street, this will be the artist’s first show with the gallery.

In this body of arresting portraits, Borland dresses and directs her models; manipulating their various costumes, makeup and body positioning to create her own visual language. With faces obscured by wigs, nylon hose and masks, her anonymous subjects are captured in moments of great openness and vulnerability.

Of his experience modelling for Borland, the musician Nick Cave writes, “I am struck by Polly’s deep love for her subjects and the dignity that exists in their dysmorphia. Because her pictures are never voyeuristic, never observational and never merely shocking. Rather, Polly seems to me to be shooting into a distorted mirror and simply bringing back heartbreaking refracted images of herself.”

Borland’s captivating, intimate portraits convey a keen sensitivity to her subjects. “It’s a long time that the camera has been bringing us news about zanies and pariahs, their miseries and their quirks. Showing the banality of the non-normal. Making voyeurs of us all…” writes Susan Sontag in her essay accompanying Borland’s The Babies catalogue, “… But this is particularly gifted, authoritative, intelligent work. Borland’s pictures seem very knowing, compassionate; and too close, too familiar, to suggest common or mere curiosity.”

Borland was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1959, and moved to the United Kingdom in 1989. She has recently relocated to Los Angeles.

Text from the Paul Kasmin Gallery website