Larry Sultan
The Valley
15.03. – 19.04.2009

The Kunstverein Bremerhaven is presenting photographs from the series “The Valley” by Californian artist Larry Sultan (born 1946).

Since 1998, Sultan has been investigating why the ideal of the middle-class home lends itself to a very curious form of appropriation – namely, its use as a backdrop for pornographic films. The series also questions the concept of photographic truth, a popular theme among contemporary artists.

Ordinary residential houses, located in the San Fernando Valley, are rented for a period of a few days. During these days, pornographic films are shot there. Larry Sultan took photographs in these houses. He was not interested in the morality or sociology of pornography, but rather in examining what the home and domestic life in the American suburbs mean when they are used as such a symbolically charged backdrop.

The result is portraits that reveal the edges of the set and the boredom behind the film characters; Photos that show the working actors behind their roles in candid moments of exhaustion, hunger and boredom during breaks in filming.

Larry Sultan grew up in the San Fernando Valley, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and lives in California. He is a leading photographer in the California art scene and far beyond.