:: The World as a Film Set ::

The World as a Film Set - text by Eric Min –

Almost two centuries after the invention of photography, it remains a fascinating paradox: the very medium that promised to depict the everyday world faithfully and in detail enjoys deceiving us. The photographer, once an objective witness and provider of evidence, has become an observer who intervenes and manipulates. The person with the camera selects the subject and framing, the characters and the situation, the moment when time stands still. This creates a distinct, parallel world of images. Therefore, photographic practice is not fundamentally different from classical visual arts. Since Susan Sontag analyzed the position of the medium in On Photography (1973), not much has changed.

Or has it? On the one hand, staged photography has evolved into its own genre. On the other hand, the classical documentary approach of the photojournalist has evolved, and the genre has become aware of its own limits. The act of looking at photos has also undergone an evolution. Today, we constantly question the true status of the images we see. How ‘real’ are they? Can we trust our eyes? Does the photo tell the truth – and what do we mean by that?

All the images brought together by Liesbeth Marit (°1979) and Charlotte Lybeer (°1981) under the title “Two Beers and No Puppy” exist in the borderland between reality and fiction. There is always a suspicion of an altered reality, often with a surreal or even oppressive atmosphere. We don’t see real portraits but characters in strange, mental spaces – Marit calls them ‘secret landscapes.’ Despite the different approaches of both photographers, there is a strong sense of kinship.

Liesbeth Marit presents images that could be filmstills, fragments that seem to be part of a script that exists only in her own mind; they unfold in landscapes that she constructs as models in the studio or discovers in the ‘real’ world and then manipulates with light, paint, or other techniques. The figures are directed, the images assembled as parts of an imaginary sequence. Spaces become sets. Thus, the photographer stages scenes of what could be a dream. The incongruous, disruptive imagination is her element.

Although Lybeer’s approach has roots in documentary photography, you can also sense a mise-en-scène in her interiors with female figures. The characters are time-for-print models that Lybeer met during the COVID-19 quarantine. She photographed them in the seclusion of their rooms, often in a corner with closed curtains or lowered blinds, enhancing the claustrophobic effect.

When talking to the photographers about their work, concepts such as montage and location, set and pose, construction and control, props, and attributes continually come up. “I often conceptualize the image beforehand,” says Lybeer, “and let myself be guided by what unfolds.” She usually captures the moment when the model abandons stereotypical poses and falls out of character. Marit explores locations suitable for the situation she wants to direct and occasionally adds props – as demonstrated, for example, in the photo with the mermaid, the dog, and the swimming pool, where discreet interventions transform a real existing garden into a dreamlike vision.

Both photographers enjoy playing with distance: how close should you get to a model or a situation, when do you let go of control? To determine that, the rule from the exhibition title is a useful tool: do you just have a few beers with someone or do you trust them with your puppy for a whole weekend?