WOUTER DERUYTTER
Times Square (#1), 2003
C-print on dibond
40 x 50 cm
Edition of 12
Wouter Deruytter moved from Roeselaren in Belgium to New york in the beginning of the nineties to study photography at the international center for photograpy. Quickly after his arrival he focussed his lens on this very photogenic city. He was fascinated by the role the abundant advertisements played in the townscape. The billboards of megolamaniac proportions allow the half naked models on them to hover over the city as the ghost of unachievable perfection. Their sultry looks and gorgeous bodies have an almost threatening character in Deruytters photo's.
By using these models as larger than life residents Wouter Deruytter made New York into a city of giants. The people passing underneath almost seem subjects to this contemporary Olympus. These new commercial gods are scaled to the skyscrapers in stead of the public which seems to create a whole new layer of existence within the city. Between these layers an often ironic meeting between hypercapitalist display of power and the daily life of the New Yorkers takes place. Sensuous scenes of affection that should sell underwear are collectively ignored by the passersby. One wonders how far these scenes must go to be noticed at all.
In summary these works approach the billboards in New York in three distinct ways. First they emphasize the change in the experience of scale they accomplish. Secondly they focus on the often comic visual pairing between what happens on the billboards and what goes on underneath. Monks passing barely clothed giantesses and the slogan 'impossible is nothing' above one of the cities less fortunate inhabitants. But what they mostly make clear is that the general populace of New York has learned to somehow completely ignore these visual screams for attention.