Preview The "Violent Material" of Brooklyn Photographer, Steven Brahms
Apr 27, 2012
From "Violent Material"
Last March, we hosted the opening of Brooklyn photographer Steven Brahms' The Survival Project, a harrowing post-apocalyptic vision of us vs. the elements.
In the downtime from DP'ing music videos for the likes of Das Racist, Real Estate and Tanlines, Brahms has a unveiled an aggressive new body of work, exploring how little we truly know about violence, despite living in a visual culture hellbent on exposing us to it.
In the aptly named Violent Material, Brahms rounded up men in his neighborhood, provided them with a handgun and had them strike an action movie-style pose. In most images, the weapon remains concealed, heightening the sense of foreboding.
To quote Brahms on his inspiration:
In our contemporary state of affairs every action is a performance. We are inundated with an endless repetition of imagery. We find ourselves re-watching what we have already seen, whether it be another episode of ‘CSI’ or the endless cycle of conflict around the globe. The incidents we witness reveal nothing about what is actually happening. Actions are interpreted and each interpretation is different because in the telling and re-telling we don’t reveal the action itself, but an assortment of reductions and emphasis.
Presented here are a selection of images from Violent Material, as well as handful of his past work which we're just mightily fond of.
Feel like joining Brahms' ranks as a successful Brooklyn photographer? Great. We think you can do it--and we've got some classes for that.
Meanwhile, selects from Violent Material:
And now, previous work:
