Tanyth Berkeley: Survivor

November 4th, 2009

Interview with Tanyth Berkeley. Quicktime-Video (coming soon)

Official Filmwebsite: PEOPLE * LOVE * PHOTOS

Survivor

New York is a magnet, the quintessence of that which captivates cosmopolitan life: Speed, freedom, unlimited possibilities, art and culture. New York is sexy, contrary to the notion that it has long ago forgone its attraction to other metropolitan cities. Those who visit New York can still sense the promise of the American Dream.

Photo courtesey of Tanyth Berkeley.

Tanyth Berkeley lives in New York. The young photographer, who has recently had her own show in MOMA, lives and breathes to the rhythm of the city. When she ambles down the streets of Brooklyn, one gets the impression, that these and nothing else are her natural habitat. She doesn’t seem to hear the deafening noise from the subway, or smell the exhaust coming from the traffic; she appears to be oblivious to the weathered faces of some people crossing her path.

Photo courtesey of Tanyth Berkeley.

Appearances are deceiving. She sees, breathes, and experiences the city with all its inconsistencies. These she captures in her images of people. Her large formatted photography depicts those in society who, at first, appear to be losers, broken, metropolitan ship wrecks alienated in an anonymous crowd, disillusioned and burdened by broken dreams. The saying “Lupus est homo homini” is still valid and branded on the people in Berkeley’s pictures. They bear the marks of the contemporary struggle for an appropriate place in a society ruled by the Charles Darwin principle “survival of the fittest“. These faces show disappointment, anguish and loneliness; yet, at the same time they are filled with both courage and hope. The photographs don’t deal in clichés; they can be understood in both ways. They illustrate strict aesthetic dialectics: beauty and ugliness, desolation and happiness, desperation and hope. Tanyth Berkeley photographs the survivors of a struggle, not fought with crude weapons but with the subtitle means of a sophisticated Post-modern society.

Daniela Krien

Translation by Glummie Riday

LINE OF BEAUTY AND GRACE

A documentary about Jock Sturges

About the film

Watch the trailer

Buy the DVD

Fine Art, Interview: Art, Interview: Photographer, Interviews, Photography | Comments | Trackback