Gregory Crewdson's Beneath the Roses opened tonight at Luhring Augustine and it seemed that most of Manhattan was invited to the event (or like myself, just turned up). Crewdson is big stuff, his photographs are big, the production is big, and the opening event was big, too.

Crewdson is known for creating dense, luscious images of uncanny events and this show maintains that theme. An alienated pregnant woman stares into the middle distance, a alienated young couple hold hands whilst avoiding each others gaze, another couple lie naked post coital and distant, and so on. The pschological effect of these images is undeniable, and their beauty is a necessary part of the plan. The rich colour palette, the often frightening patterning when inside (or atmospheric effects when outside) and the truly extravagent lighting schemas relentlessly bombard the viewer. (As a photographer just calculating the cost of the lighting rigs and set up is terrifying). Each picture implies a narrative of a isolation, of quite desparation and psychological mal-being and the grandeur and beauty of the photographs highlights this discrepency intensifying the experience. The figures are side lit frankly neatly extracting the figure from its environment, drawing attention, and creating another layer of prozac-artificiality to the sense of the figures. Every building, wall, or room is lit to articulate the depth in the palette and throw drama into x-number of square inches of pictorial space. This is not only technically impressive but shows the degree of care that is placed into these set-ups. However, the pictures also do not gives us moment not to be emotionally hurled around our own psychological space.

If a figure is in a car - light the car from within, with a warm tone to isolate the space from the cool light outside; if a figure is staring off into the middle distant with the line of sight preferably crossing (but not engaging) another's - light them acutely from the side but hide the source of the light (on occasion digitally or by placing it between buildings, or in another room); if there's plenty of walls - sharp long shadows are good; and so on. Typically comparisons are made of his work to cinema and although the light is hollywood because time is captured and intimated differently in a photograph the viewing is different, limiting the analogy. However, Crewdson's modus operandi is certainly as operatic as hollywood, and the stories he creates trigger (in my head at least) a low generic soundtrack for a truly immersive experience. The immersion in the work is the difficulty, stifling the viewer's responses and possibilty of understanding, and in fact making any kind of empathic response difficult.

This is only one show, there's bound to be consistency in the work, however the light is used to throughout to enact one compound pschological effect, as if all of these figures are alone in suburbia, in Generic-small-town, and all have been made into emotional simpletons, but truly beautifully so.