Tress Arthur

ARTHUR TRESS

Arthur Tress was born in Brooklyn in 1940 and, since he was young, he started experimenting with the camera in Cony Island. He’s well known for a socalled “magic realism” photography in which both everyday-life elements and the ones taken from the imaginary are melted together as a trademark of his production.  

This particular approach has been especially selected for the series “Dream Collector”, a real cornerstone of his career according to which he was able to create an authentic, strong and shocking portrait of the emotional effect on the viewer. After having recorded the dreams of a group of children, he made them listening again to such memories asking them to re-experience those events, to photograph them. It deals often with surrealistic backgrounds that reveal fears, wishes and the metaphorical imaginary of the little ones. 

His aim was to go beyond the simple documentation of facts, to create works able to instill an ambiguous portrait of reality through the addition of concrete elements with a metaphysical connotation. Such choice disorientates the viewer and introduces him in a dream-like atmosphere, following a strategy used also for later works.

“The photographic image has great possibilities. The magical photograph attempts to go beyond the immediate context of the recorded experience into the realm of the indefinable. The photographer as magician is acutely aware of the multiplicity of the association submerged in the appearance of the objective world”.

Boy with giant ball

Teenager in telephone

Boy with giant ball

New York, 1972
gelatin silver print
cm 28 x 35 ca. / inches 11 x 14 ca.

Teenager in telephone

Bronx, 1969
gelatin silver print
cm 28 x 35 ca. / inches 11 x 14 ca.

Girl in aquarium

Girl in aquarium

San Francisco, California, 1972
gelatin silver print
cm 28 x 35 ca. / inches 11 x 14 ca.

NY

 1983
gelatin silver print
cm 40 x 40 ca. / inches 15,7 x 15,7 ca.

Claire de Lune

FLYING DREAM

Claire de Lune

Breezy Point, New York, 1975
gelatin silver print
cm 28 x 35 ca. / inches 11 x 14 ca.

Flying Dream

Queens, New York, 1971
gelatin silver print
cm 50 x 50 ca. / inches 20 x 20 ca.

Woman with dog

Boy with duck decoy

Woman with dog

New York, 1976
gelatin silver print
cm 20 x 20 ca. / inches 8 x 8 ca.

Boy with duck decoy

Passaic, New Jersey, 1968
gelatin silver print
cm 28 x 35 ca. / inches 11 x 14 ca.

Urban Cowboy

Urban Cowboy

New York City, 1978
gelatin silver print
cm 20 x 20 ca. / inches 8 x 8
 ca.

Hermaphrodite

Museum Curator

Hermaphrodite between statues

East Hampton, New York, 1973
gelatin silver print
cm 28 x 35 ca. / inches 11 x 14 ca.

Museum Curator

New York, 1975
gelatin silver print
cm 20 x 20 ca. / inches 8 x 8 ca.

two lesbians

Boy with plaster rabbit

Two Lesbians

New York, 1974
gelatin silver print
cm 20 x 20 ca. / inches 8 x 8 ca.

Boy with plaster rabbit

Florida, 1975
gelatin silver print
cm 20 x 20 ca. / inches 8 x 8 ca.

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