A beautiful glamorous shot - Audrey Corregan

Artist Book.
500 numbered copies, including a print.
62 pages, 17X23cm

"After winning the photography prize at the Hyères festival, Audrey Corregan was invited by the School of Visual Arts to join its PhotoGlobal program and is currently based in New York.
During the past year, she has closely observed the backstage imagery of the formal portrait as practiced in photo-studios. Particularly popular in North American culture, their activity ranges from graduation pictures to family portraits to "Workers of the Month".
Old Master Muslin is the name given in the trade to the printed or painted backdrops used in this field of applied photography. It is also the title of the installation that was presented at the Villa Noailles in 2009, which can be described as follows:
A simple apparatus, like those found in photography studios, supports a large expanse of paper extending in space, forming a curve down to the ground. In front of and against this backdrop rises a complex structure made from pieces of wood. An anthropometric form displaying a clear range of references (from the Constructivist sculpture of Vladimir Tatline to the blank billboards of New York, from a kind of instrument of torture to the ingenious devices used by classical portrait painters and later photographers to help models sit still), it occupies the central place, that of the model.
On the wall, three plotter prints have been suspended from two nails. These are images cut out of backdrops used for portraits, which would have been veritable non-places were it not for the discreet appearance of a studio element.
Pursuing a work that examines the relationship between photography and model, Audrey Corregan has isolated in this small book, one of the typical poses used in portrait photography.
Though visibly counter-nature, these postures seem to be a necessary ingredient in the quality of the image, quality that would remain incomplete without the pictural effect of the background.
The artist thus proposes a compilation of images found on the Web. Mid-way between a key to an interpretation of Old Master Muslin and a research notebook, this small edition is the latest in a series of collaboration between Audrey Corregan and Erik Haberfeld, an independent graphic designer."

Thomas Koenig