Michael Lease
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Work from You’re Invited.
“I began collecting images for You’re Invited shortly after having found a Kodachrome slide showing the back of a man as he blew out birthday candles. I was thrilled by the funny confluence of elements-the yellow curtains, the man’s blue shirt, the boxy, old refrigerator, and a woman’s hand breaking into the edge of the frame holding a glass of water. All of this came together to create a vernacular Garry Winogrand, or one of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moments. Finding this slide also made plain the ubiquity of this type of image. I was curious to see how similar other pictures (of this type) were to this thrift store gem. I wanted the images to be solicited from people with whom I was close, so I wrote letters to my friends’ mothers asking them to send a similar picture of my friend. I also asked the mothers to write about the time when the picture was taken. After receiving the pictures and letters, I emailed the pictures to my friends asking that they also write about the photographs. I was interested in how the memories of the day and the reactions to the pictures would differ. When gathered together and exhibited alongside one another, the photographs and the texts of the mothers and the children allow for a story more complicated than expected from a seemingly sweet and charming subject.” – Michael Lease