MATT LIPPS: SOLVE FOR X

Over the past twenty years, Matt Lipps has developed a distinctive photographic practice that pays tribute to the history of twentieth century photography while also questioning the dominant myths that structure our cultural narratives. This exhibition presents new work from two related but distinct series, both of which incorporate analogue photography, collage and printed media.

In exploring the role of mass media in forming the photographic canon and structuring gender, Lipps simultaneously questions the disparate notions about both genres: shallow commerce versus deep investigation; ephemeral style versus timeless documents; and femininity versus masculinity.

As a young photographer discovering his queer identity, Lipps immersed himself in the glamorous pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, privately identifying with the supermodels and scrutinizing the work of leading fashion photographers like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.

Lipps' process involves meticulously cutting out portions of the journalistic images and layering them onto freestanding cardboard silhouettes of supermodels in animated poses, creating three-dimensional tableaux that are then re-photographed and enlarged.

The resulting image-laden figures function as both surface and aperture while the combination of gritty realism and feminized sexuality creates new and unexpected readings. In physically constructing his images, Lipps addresses photography’s ability to shape reality, manufacture emotion, script identity, warp memory and dictate desire.