CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/28/2016

Gregory Crewdson: Cathedral of the Pines

"The blonde woman with the tan lines and darkened eyes sits on the bumper of a pickup truck," Alexander Nemerov begins his essay on Gregory Crewdson's work in relation to the American past. "A man, naked, lies face down on the truck's bed. For the woman, the only time is now. Whatever grief or disappointment governs her isolation—whatever has just gone wrong or right—she knows only the moment. To talk of history with her makes no sense, unless we think of her own immediate past, what happened there, what brought these two to this place. A vaster time—what occurred, say, before she was born—does not matter in the privacy of her misfortune. Yet a sense of the past—of American history—governs Gregory Crewdson's work." Featured image is Pickup Truck.