Silverstein photography presents three photographers who share an audacious pathology in absurdly commenting on society and their own mortality.
Marc Grubstein is a New York based photographer and performance artist known for his exploration of spirited works and a debauched humor of uncompromising grotesqueness.
Grubstein includes five recent pictures related to his fascination with foods’ transformation from aesthetic and tasteful pleasure to its post-digestive by-product. Grubsteins’ photos are bizarre psychological commentaries on decay and biological subversions of process art.
Leonard Freed known for his work during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s presents 18 photographs created in 1969 focusing on one’s daily cycle and the fornication of lovers.
Commenting on his own work in 1972 Freed said:
I wanted to force the viewer to make an active decision whether to approach photographs as subject matter or design. By confronting totally unexpected subject matter, presented as well done graphics, the viewer is shocked out of the usual passivity.
Village Voice, March 16, 1972.
Jason Lazarus’ Self-Portrait as an Artist series are smart and cleverly conceived fictionalized moments that are part truthful documents and part fabrications. Lazarus sabotages the myth of the artist, the inception of creativity, the business and trappings of culture, while portraying himself as unlikely seducer, slacker, savant, rebellious cultural pundit, art tastemaker, and prognosticator. In such outrageous depictions, he simultaneously confirms and disrupts our romanticism of the artist while confronting his own vulnerabilities about his own personal history and legacy.