Sunday 2/22 Entry

Miriam Backstrom

Backstrom is a Swedish photographer who's projects appear to be documentary versions of my dream project. Backstrom photographs television and movie sets in the process of being built. In these photographs, Backstrom attempts to bring to our understanding the falsities of the worlds we drive into every afternoon or evening. While actors are constantly trying to make the viewer believe in the action taking place on screen, Backstrom is constantly trying to make them understand that there is no such alternate reality. At the end of the day, McDreamy goes home to his house in Bel Air and Detective Munch goes back to his wife and three dogs.

The work I am currently doing sets up a reality, only to banish that myth. While Backstrom takes recognizable sets and shows us their transparency, I stage an actualy activity that is improbable, though not entirely impossible, in everyday life.

http://www.artnet.com/artist/715667/miriam-backstrom.html
http://www.renabranstengallery.com/Backstrom.html
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/miriam_baeckstroem_and_carsten_hoeller/