Ever since her career began in the 1970s, Californian artist
Lutz Bacher has drawn upon fragmented information from popular
culture and her own life to produce work. Her ability to feed of the popular zeitgeists
within western culture is notably seen at her recent show at the Ratio 3 Gallery,
in which at first glance appears to be a completely black photograph. Look harder
and staring out at you is an enlarged photograph of Edward Cullen, the tween-heartthrob
character played by Robert Pattinson in the blockbuster adaptation of
the Twilight series.
Bacher’s books, installations, sculptures, videos,
photographs, paintings and screenprints, use a varied combination of imagery
and objects in a physical, visceral manner, as well as using text to alter
context or the views perception of a subject. Bacher does not encourage the
viewer to understand the work, by excluding explanations of her pieces and often
no titles or information offered online.
Lutz Bacher feeds of what is around us in our everyday
fabric of western culture and symbolism, alterations and twists in context,
forces the viewer to ‘join the dots’ when searching for meaning and
understanding within the work.
