The Art of Loving and “The Fashion Model”
The further removed from something we are, the more beautiful it appears. Never meet your heroes, the cliché goes. Avoid knowing things, Nietzsche tells us. Knowledge has a pornographic element to it. Science is pretty sadistic, if you think about it.
Jason Mickle is a fashion photographer and through him and an array of technologies (photoshop, lights, etc.) and people (makeup artists, assistants, etc.) he captures a portrait of Eric Lodwick. The photograph appears in a fashion magazine. From this removed standpoint, Eric appears God-like; almost perfect.
Jake Lodwick creates a “work portrait” of his brother; of his brother as fashion model. A heavily cut, intensely mediated representation. Light gets blurred, we ignore some moments only to give unnatural heft to others: the skateboarder taking flight. The music uplifts the banality. What appears is a beautiful series of moments, a pretty perfect (and plastic) representation.
Move in even closer. Get rid of representation. Sure being me is fine (great even), but not nearly as fine as the representations of me. Art rocks. Life sucks.