Arno Nollen: Still Life
Annet Gelink Gallery is proud to present Still Life, the second solo exhibition of Amsterdam based photographer Arno Nollen (b.1964). Arno Nollen is a Dutch photographer known for his photographs, books and movies of girls. All kinds of girls, thick, thin, naked, clothed, looking into the camera or staring at the floor, posing awkward or self conscious.
Still Life shows photos of both girls and boys. Photos and films Nollen made between 2009-2012 during several stays at Hotel Costes in Paris. The hotel is one of the most famous establishment on the 1st arrondissement, the most fashionable district in Paris, surrounded by the Tuilleries and the Louvre. Founded in 1995 by Jean-Louis Costes. The renovation of the building was carried out by architect and designer Jacques Garcia, who completely stripped, rebuilt and decorated in a Baroque style, where red velvet and fabric dominate the interior and where time seems to have stopped. It is also the favourite nightspot of Parisians who like to stay for lunch, dinner or lounging.
Nollen was approached by art director Philippe Saglio in 2008, on behalf of Costes. Saglio had seen one of Nollen's books in Chambre Claire. It was the exhibition catalogue Arno Nollen (2005) that was published in conjunction with his solo exhibition Photographs of girls and young women at the Museum De Hallen in Haarlem. Saglio was immediately convinced that Nollen was the one he wanted to invite for a project at Hotel Costes. Eventually this led to the wonderful book Costes and an exhibition of Nollen's photographs in the hotel itself.
The subjects of Still Life are the clientele, hotel porters and waiting staff of this exclusive hotel. What brings these portraits together in the exhibition and the book is not so much the place where they reside but Nollen's eye and view, which observes the guests, makes choices and captures the sons, mistresses, hotel employees, daughters, business women in an instance, no studio, no big lights, no make-up and styling. What is revealed are intimate portraits of people who may or may not expose themselves to Arno's camera.
