KEN SCHLES (New York, 1960)
The artist displays an amazing balance between the lights and darks of each picture. It has intense shadows leaving a suspenseful and erie kind of feeling with just enough light to see what is happening. In doing this, the artist conveys a sort of "truth" with no added color to try and make it more aesthetically pleasing. Without focusing too much on a central subject, the artist shows the whole scene and leaves the viewer to wonder. Schles' unique style illustrates a narrative behind his photographs.
Ken Schles highlights urban landscapes and gives an insight to some of these peoples lives in the streets. The grainy and blurred effects that he uses give inanimate objects a weird sense of motion. For example, with the first photograph it is almost covered in shadows, but the viewer still gets a sense for the room and what is going on. The title of the book that the works came from is called "Invisible City" and that tells us that he intends to show what is being overlooked.
I think that the artist I chose is incredible in the fact that it is only black and white and it really makes you look twice. The viewer can see immense amounts of detail and get a sense for where the photograph was actually taken. The general public that Ken Schles photographs are usually oblivious or just too busy to see what is going on. I feel like the artist may have wanted that to get the viewer to have a self realization about the world around them.
" The city is a place where the self is confronted most brutally with the other, and where it is also most detached from it."
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