MOODY BEAUTY: MAPPLETHORPE & TODD HIDO
Looking back over a year of art exhibitions in our quest for Best of 2020, we've gathered some of our favorites from The Armory Show, New York City’s premier art fair. It features some of the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century art, represented by leading international galleries. This annual show has served as a nexus for the art world since its founding in 1994, where top collectors come to satisfy their passions.
Today, we present selected works by photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Todd Hido, represented by Bruce Silverstein Gallery.
Check them out below.
Mood, palpable yet intangible, is photographer Todd Hido’s medium, as much as film and silver gelatin. Drawing from childhood memories fused with dreams and fancies, his images are highly personal. His style is cinematic.
Hido’s body of work encompasses three groups, landscapes, interiors, and portraits. They are each steeped in deep tender emotion and psychological tension. Both emit an air of mystery.
The landscapes portrayed are often shot through his car windshield, captured during long road trips. Hido’s preference for overcast or rainy days and velvety black nights dictates his palette, turning both common American suburbia and more exotic Icelandic byways into painterly odes.
While his landscapes and interiors are devoid of human presence, Hido’s portraits are, in essence, inner landscapes. They share a sense of isolation and foreboding.
Hido was born in Kent, Ohio. He received his B.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and his M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts where he was mentored by Larry Sultan.
Hido’s photographs have been exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washignton D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Whitney Museum of Art., among others.
Hido’s most recent publication, “Bright Black World,” highlights the artist’s exploration of Iceland’s brooding landscapes. And check out his earlier award-winning books, including “Outskirts,” “Roaming, Between the Two,” “A Road Divided,” “Silver Meadows,” and “Intimate Distance.”
The artist lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Highlights from the Bruce Silverstein Gallery Armory Show presentation also includes select vintage and modern works by Daido Moriyama, an exceptional large-format grisaille watercolor from Alfred Leslie’s beloved series, “100 Views Along the Road,” and a stunning lifetime print by Robert Mapplethorpe depicting the artist’s favored muse, Lisa Lyon.
Read more about Awesome Art all this week on BeautifulNow, including The Art of Time & Place. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.