Joel-Peter Witkin's 'Au Revoir' Exhibition at CAR Gallery Bologna

Joel-Peter Witkin, born in Brooklyn in 1939 and based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, presents his solo exhibition 'Au Revoir' at CAR Gallery in Bologna. The show features 11 photographs and a preparatory sketch of a deformed woman holding a drink with a penis, organized in collaboration with Parisian gallerist Baudoin LeBon and the Joel-Peter Witkin Studio. Witkin's work confronts mortality, decay, deformity, and deviance through meticulously staged tableaux that reference art history, Christian symbolism, and the grotesque. His process involves research, sketches, object placement, chemical manipulation of negatives, and scratching. Key works include 'Imperfect Thirst' (2016), depicting a snake-fish on a Pre-Raphaelite face attracted to a rotting fruit; 'La Belle et La Bête' (2017), showing a woman clutching a skull; 'Life is an Invention: The Constellation of Balthus' (2008), a collage of five deformed humans and a hanged cat; and 'Night in a Small Town' (2007), featuring a smoking centauress and a pianist. Witkin's art is described as an oxymoron, blending beauty with repulsion, and serves as a memento mori and carpe diem. The exhibition runs at CAR Gallery in Bologna.