Capture, bear witness, remember: for Nicholas Nixon, this is the primary task of photography, and the portrait and documentary photographer fulfils it in his own inspiring way, proving time and again his mastery as a chronicler and observer.
(...) Continue readingNicholas Nixon appreciated the large format camera
Nicholas Nixon was born on 27th October 1947 in Detroit, Michigan. Under the influence of Walker Evans and Edward Weston, he favoured large-format cameras early in his career and maintained this preference even when most of his colleagues opted for smaller models. Nixon justified this decision with the possibility of being able to make direct prints, which he felt guaranteed a higher level of integrity in the image. And for an artist and photographer who saw his art first and foremost as documentation, integrity was infinitely important. Nothing was to be lost, nothing was allowed to escape the sharp eye of the camera. The widespread switch to smaller cameras had led to a noticeable loss of precision and wealth of information, Nixon once lamented. This criticism never applied to his own pictures, with their unrivalled depth and expressiveness, and even the layman can guess that Nicholas Nixon's photographs have their own history, which distinguishes them from today's ubiquitous flood of images. A fact that also has to do with the artist's often unconventional choice of motifs.
An unobtrusive portraitist of society
Nicholas Nixon never limited himself to the beautiful, to the aesthetic as a motif, but was interested in the abysmal, did not shy away from horror, showed hunger, misery, illness, old age and hardship. His series of pictures of AIDS patients caused a worldwide sensation. However, Nixon never imposed himself on his models, but maintained great restraint despite the intimacy he achieved. It was also a conscious decision to use black-and-white photography, which allowed Nixon to focus on the essentials, freeing his often unsparing depictions from anything garishly colourful as a distraction or relativisation and ensuring the desired respectful distance whilst simultaneously maintaining great closeness.
Nicholas Nixon photographs time itself
Time has many faces, and in Nicholas Nixon's work it shows four at once: the artist has been photographing his wife Bebe and her three sisters since the summer of 1975, creating a remarkable document of human development over the years. The series of pictures, which began at a family celebration, is now world-famous and has become Nicholas Nixon's most important figurehead. The four sisters Laurie, Heather, Bebe and Mimi always pose in the same position, always facing the camera, not only for the photographer Nixon, but for a worldwide audience. A year passes between each of the shots, and the viewer can only guess what happened between the pictures. Although numerous variations are created at each session, Nixon only ever publishes one selected print. The photographs are taken in different locations with different lighting, the women never wear the same clothes, and their facial expressions and gestures change - but despite all these differences in detail, a fascinating overall picture emerges over the years, in which the four Brown sisters enable their husband and brother-in-law Nicholas Nixon to photograph something that cannot actually be depicted photographically: time.
Nicholas Nixon - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz: