Felix Friedman
Photography
59 Polaroid Series Boudicca – May 2012
59 Polaroid Series Boudicca – May 2012
‘Fashion adds another layer to who we are. It makes us, changes us, leads us, deceives us and explains us. This is the most banal but important side effect of fashion. Fashion photography can help lead us or more likely mislead us into a world of phantasy and fiction.’
Felix Friedmann’s photography is strongly traditional and craft-based. His work comprises fashion, portrait and landscape photography taken on 4 x 5 inch, medium and small format film. Underscored by a technical unity, the images explore a diverse range of subject matters. His narratives emerge as a series of large hand-printed colour photographs that convey traces of the human being in light of their paradoxical dualism: both beautiful relics and disruptive, geometric interventions in urban and organic landscapes. This exhibition presents a set of photographs which were shot in Epping Forest and dedicated to 14 years of Boudicca, the British fashion label founded by Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby. As Friedmann writes
‘The 59 Polaroid film was discontinued in 2008. Because it is outdated, the colours, contrasts and results are entirely unpredictable. It is exclusive, unique, close to handmade and irretrievable. Seeing the results is exciting. It’s a bit like Christmas, sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you don’t.
I believe that the Polaroid 59 film adds personality to the imagery. The specific language of the photographic vision and the bespoke language of the fashion are tightly knit together. Boudicca, the East London based fashion label, creates designs which very much concentrate on unique, conceptual and exclusive pieces. I aimed to underline Boudicca’s vision by choosing the Polaroid 59 film in order to drift away from the deceptive world of fashion into more honest ways of being.’
Represented by Brigitta Horvat, Friedmann currently lives and works in London. His work has been presented in galleries across UK, Austria and the Netherlands, and featured in publications such as Icon, Die Zeit, NZZ, Disegno, Monocle, Apartamento, Achtung, Apollo, Guardian, Intersection, Wiener, Moderne Architektur im Salzkammergut.
The Series is dedicated to 14 years Boudicca, shot in Epping Forest, London.