SAM TAYLOR-JOHNSON O.B.E. (BRITISH 1967-)
LOOKING OUT - 2002
Hand-printed c-type colour photograph, 49/200, signed, titled, dated and numbered in ink to margin, published by Counter Editions, London
50cm x 60cm (19.75in x 23.5in)
Footnote: YBA artist Sam Taylor-Johnson is perhaps best-known for her 2002 National Portrait Gallery commission to depict David Beckham, where she presented a film of him sleeping. One significant body of work is her 'Five Revolutionary Seconds' series, where she uses a panoramic camera to take a full 360° image of an interior during a five second exposure. In ‘Looking Out,’ created especially for Counter Editions, Taylor-Johnson returns to this format, though the final print is a 120 degree span, taken from the full 360 degree shot. It depicts British actress Thandie Newton in the Picture gallery of Althorp House, ancestral home to the Spencer family and resting place of Diana, Princess of Wales. Taylor-Johnson comments ‘I wanted someone who was achingly beautiful in a surrounding that was equally achingly beautiful, but for the two to be slightly incongruous.’ Newton is physically present within the room but visually her modernity contrasts with its historic interior while she is centred in the change of light from the exterior bright sunshine to the internal shadows, her presence is an unexplained, liminal space, compelling the viewer in.