| | | | Mona Kuhn: She Disappeared into Complete Silence
 The light and forms of Joshua Tree National Park inspire a turn toward abstraction for the famed photographerAcclaimed for her intimate nudes, Mona Kuhn takes a new direction into abstraction in her latest series. Photographed at a golden modernist structure on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, architectural lines, light reflections and a single figure have been carefully balanced against the backdrop of the Californian desert.
The human figure in these images--Kuhn’s friend and collaborator Jacintha--emerges like a surrealist mirage, fragmented and indistinct, at times submerged in shadows or overexposed. The building’s facades of glass and mirrors serve as optical planes, an extension of the artist’s camera and lens. Light is split into refracting colors, desert vegetation grows sideways, inside is outside and outside in. Kuhn pushes a certain disorienting effect by introducing metallic foils as an additional surface, at times producing purely abstract results. The work marks Kuhn’s increasing use of techniques that appear to merge the figure, abstraction and landscape into one. Mona Kuhn (born 1969) is best known for her large-scale, dreamlike photographs of the human form. Her pictures often reference classical themes with a light and insightful touch. Kuhn’s approach to her work is distinguished by the close relationships she develops with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable naturalness and intimacy. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Kuhn lives and works in Los Angeles.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Mona Kuhn: She Disappeared into Complete Silence.'PRAISE AND REVIEWSBritish Journal of Photography Marigold Warner She Disappeared Into Complete Silence is an experimental project shot in Acido Dorado, a reflective house in the middle of the Californian desert designed by American architect Robert Stone. Inside it are mirrored ceilings and walls, which refract sheets of golden desert light that flood the house. Here, Kuhn presents a solitary nude on the edge of the desert, removed from any symbols of time, creating “an abstraction of being,” and “a space where our mind resides”. C Magazine Marie Look Contemporary photographer Mona Kuhn introduces her latest series, the abstract-slanting She Disappeared Into Complete Silence, in which modern architectural lines and the human form mingle against the California desert background. Wallpaper Charlotte Jansen Timeless and trippy, the photographs are testimony to the unique effects of the desert environment – a place for deep enquiry and to ruminate on the essence of being human. Musee Amy Schatz Kuhn’s She Disappeared into Complete Silence proves the artist is a maestra with the lens and a sorceress in the desert; she shrinks Jacintha into glittering nothingness, a mere memory of the female form. Aesthetica In a new publication from Steidl, She Disappeared into Complete Silence, the practitioner takes fresh steps into abstraction. Set against a backdrop of the expansive Californian desert, it taps into our relationship with the environment – connecting interior and exterior worlds through layering and refraction. Feature Shoot Miss Rosen In She Disappeared into Complete Silence (Steidl), Kuhn takes Paul Nash’s Landscape from a Dream (1936-38) as her departure point and delves into the realm of photography to explore the surreal, symbolic realm of the California desert landscape, her model Jacintha, and elements of architecture to organize chaos. |
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| | FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/8/2019 Featured image is reproduced from Mona Kuhn: She Disappeared in Complete Silence, the sophisticated Fashion Week favorite releasing this week from Steidl. Enigmatic and poetic, the book "forces the gaze to wander from one image to another, to imagine a story so that we may comprehend them," Salvador Nadales writes. "The work’s personal universe gives rise to situations in which the body in all its integrity, the raw landscape, and the most essential abstraction appear within complete silence, and convey to us absolute truths. But this truth flirts with the imagination and asks the viewer to supply the narrative. We could characterize this as a space of germination where enigmatic signs take seed and the harmonic hybridization of the elements give rise to an evocative tale. The essence of Mona Kuhn’s work reveals her concerns as an artist working in the transcendental dimension, the atemporal plane, and from a knowledge of human nature and how people relate to themselves, to others, and to the outside world. She achieves all this in a way that is consistent with her approach to photography, which, more than telling stories, allows you to imagine them." continue to blogFROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/25/2019 Enigmatic and poetic, Mona Kuhn's new photography book, She Disappeared into Complete Silence, "forces the gaze to wander from one image to another, to imagine a story so that we may comprehend them," Salvador Nadales writes. "The work’s personal universe gives rise to situations in which the body in all its integrity, the raw landscape, and the most essential abstraction appear within complete silence, and convey to us absolute truths. But this truth flirts with the imagination and asks the viewer to supply the narrative. We could characterize this as a space of germination where enigmatic signs take seed and the harmonic hybridization of the elements give rise to an evocative tale. The essence of Mona Kuhn’s work reveals her concerns as an artist working in the transcendental dimension, the atemporal plane, and from a knowledge of human nature and how people relate to themselves, to others, and to the outside world. She achieves all this in a way that is consistent with her approach to photography, which, more than telling stories, allows you to imagine them." continue to blog | |  | STEIDLISBN: 9783958297555
USD $65.00 | CAN $88Pub Date: 3/1/2022
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|  | STEIDLISBN: 9783958291805
USD $50.00 | CAN $69.95Pub Date: 1/22/2019
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|  | STEIDLISBN: 9783869303086
USD $65.00 | CAN $87Pub Date: 9/15/2011
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|  | STEIDLISBN: 9783865213723
USD $65.00 | CAN $87Pub Date: 5/1/2007
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|  | STEIDLISBN: 9783865210081
USD $45.00 | CAN $63Pub Date: 6/2/2004
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