Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery presents new works by photographer Mark Arbeit

COLOGNE.- The artist returns to Kaune, Sudendorf after showing his last work in 2012, „Three Boys from Pasadena“, a cooperation with his long-time friends and colleagues George Holz and Just Loomis to which he contributed a collection of female acts in various Parisian artists’ studios.

His series of meticulously designed Polaroid-montages, which he started in the early 1990s and continues to this day, is this time accompanied by as yet unpublished work: Life-size photograms, intricately created with female models during an ‚artist-in-residence‘ arrangement in a photo studio in Brussels, Belgium. Both series outline an interesting interpretation of nude photography.

Photogram #9, 2012, Brussels, 240 x 120. © Mark Arbeit, Courtesy Kaune, Sudendorf Galerie, Köln.

Photograms are a classic method of producing evocative imagery by exposing photosensitive material to light through objects solid or translucent. Christian Schad‘s „Schadographies“ are commonly accepted as the origin of the modern photogram and mark the starting point of a trend which had reached the first peak in its popularity during the 1920s. Artists like Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy experimented in this form of ‚photography without a camera‘, and Floris M. Neusüss went on to create silhouettes of female models during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s, for which Fritz L. Gruber later coined the iconic term of ‚nudogram‘.

Further pushing the envelope in this tradition, Mark Arbeit explores a new facet in photograms by posing his models directly on the 130 cm wide photosensitive paper before exposing them to light. Various props allow him to create a stage for the female body, black-and-white shapes to be deciphered by the visitor: „My idea was to create grain with objects using nails, marbles, Cheerios, plastic, cellophane, rope and pasta.“ Through multiple exposure of alternating items he forms a complex composition. Diagonal lines create dynamics and underline a strong graphic effect. Arbeit skillfullydevelops an old method into our present.

His fascination for surrealism and deep appreciation of Man Ray, run like a golden thread through his oeuvre. They have inspired and influenced him deeply, like Helmut Newton has, to whom Mark Arbeit was an assistant over the years. It was a message from his mentor, delivered through a mutual friend eight years after Newton had passed away that motivated him to start working on the photograms. Newton thought that experimenting with cameraless photography could be an interesting direction for him to go in. If Arbeit had gotten this advice back then, he might have come to such results earlier. Or maybe not – some things just need time.

Mark Arbeit, born in Chicago in 1953, grew up in northern California and Oahu, Hawaii. He studied Art and Photography at the University of Hawaii before transferring to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. It was there he met with Helmut Newton for the first time, beginning a friendship that would last until Newton‘s death in 2004. After finishing his studies he went on to New York, working as an assistant to Irving Penn, learning from another master of fashion photography. To further his own career as photographer he moved to Milano, where he photographed for fashion magazines such as Linea Italia, Donna and Vogue Bellazza. In 1985 he settled in Paris and started to explore the more artistic aspects of photography. He created independent series such as ‚In and out of focus‘ and ‚Polajunk Constructions‘. Today he lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, and works all over the world.