Loretta Lux Explained

Loretta Lux
Birth Place:Dresden, East Germany
Nationality:German
Field:Photography
Training:Academy of Visual Arts
Awards:2005 Infinity Award for Art, International Center of Photography, New York, NY

Loretta Lux (born 1969)[1] is a fine art photographer known for her surreal portraits of young children.[2] She lives and works in Ireland.

Life and work

Lux was born in Dresden, East Germany. She graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Munich in the 1990s, and debuted at the Yossi Milo gallery, New York City in 2004.

Lux executes her compositions using a combination of photography, painting and digital manipulation. Her work usually features young children. She trained as a painter at Munich Academy of Art, and is influenced by painters such as Agnolo Bronzino, Diego Velázquez, Phillip Otto Runge.[3]

The artist calls her own works "imaginary portraits, dealing with the idea of childhood"[4]

Her portraits are not portraits in the conventional sense, but rather constructed ones. "I make the person my own. A portrait allows the artist, as well as the viewer, the chance to mirror themselves in the other and to reflect on their own existence." she has explained.[5]

Lux often uses vast landscapes and empty spaces as backdrops in her staged photographs in order to depict alienation. "I believe man is alienated from the world. Industrialization and destruction of the natural environment have made it impossible for man to feel at home in the world." she stated in an interview. and "I think we are all rather lost, lost in a world we cannot understand."

In a review in The New York Times, Roberta Smith calls her works „some of the weirdest, most subtly manipulated pictures of our over-digitalized moment.“[6] Other critics have described her portraits as "as charming as they are creepy" (The Village Voice) and noted that the children "have the air of self-created beings, a race of tiny Nordic monsters" (New York Times).

In her essay, Francine Prose suggests that seeds of her East German upbringing are found in Lux's photographs. "... during Lux's childhood, the state channeled reality through the upbeat fantasy of Socialist realism. This was a society in which the cult of secrecy and surveillance was a daily reality.[7]

Awards

Collections (Selection)

Works by Loretta Lux are housed in the following public collections:

Reviews and Portfolios

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Works by Loretta Lux in the Museum of Modern Art . 2023-01-16 .
  2. News: 2023-01-17. 'I use children as a metaphor for a lost paradise'. The Daily Telegraph.
  3. Jones . Kristin M. . 2004-05-05 . Frieze/Loretta Lux . 2023-01-18 . Frieze. 83 .
  4. Web site: Reid . Graham . 2008-10-05 . loretta-lux-photographer-a-disturbing-childhood . 2023-01-18 . elsewhere.
  5. Book: Blackwell, Lewis . Master Photographers on Their Art . PQ Blackwell. . 2009 . 978-0473150945.
  6. Web site: Smith . Roberta . 2004-02-06 . art-in-review-loretta-lux . 2023-01-18 . New York Times.
  7. Book: Lux . Loretta . Loretta Lux . 2005 . Aperture . 1931788545 . 11.
  8. Web site: 2005 Loretta Lux - International Center Of Photography. https://web.archive.org/web/20070928030950/http://www.icp.org/site/c.dnJGKJNsFqG/b.886361/k.43ED/Loretta_Lux.htm. dead. 28 September 2007. 28 September 2007. 27 March 2019.
  9. Web site: Artist - Lux . Guggenheim Collection . 2006-12-12 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20061003053831/http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_200614_0.html . 2006-10-03 .
  10. Web site: Exhibitions • MOCA. The Museum of Contemporary Art. 27 March 2019.
  11. Web site: Collection - Museum of Contemporary Photography. Mocp.org. 27 March 2019.
  12. Web site: The waiting girl, (2006) by Loretta Lux :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW. Artgallery.nsw.gov.au. 27 March 2019.
  13. Web site: Works by Loretta Lux in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne . 2023-01-16 . National Gallery of Victoria.
  14. Web site: Loretta Lux: Three Wishes . mfah.org.
  15. Web site: work by Loretta Lux in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA . 2023-01-16 . J. Paul Getty Museum.
  16. Web site: works by Loretta Lux in the Brooklyn Museum of Art . 2023-01-16 . Brooklyn Museum of Art.
  17. Web site: works by Loretta Lux in the SFMOMA . 2023-01-16 . SFMOMA.
  18. Web site: works by Loretta Lux in the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago . 2023-01-16 . Museum of Contemporary Photography.
  19. Web site: works by Loretta Lux in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art . 2023-01-16 . Los Angeles County Museum of Ar.
  20. Web site: https://www.fotomuseum.ch/de/sammlung-fotomuseum-winterthur/?filter[=collection_artist%3A8410#collection works by Loretta Lux in Fotomuseum Winterthur ]. 2023-01-16 . Fotomuseum Winterthur.
  21. Web site: works by Loretta Lux in the National Museum of Art, Osaka . 2023-01-16 . National Museum of Art, Osak.
  22. Web site: works by Loretta Lux in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid . 2023-01-16 . Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.

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