THREE BOYS FROM PASADENA www.threeboysfrompasadena.com A Tribute to Helmut Newton curated by June Newton Mark Arbeit, George Holz and Just Loomis were students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, when they met Newton in the late 1970s; later they would assist him regularly.
Now in their first group exhibition, the "three boys from Pasadena" have been invited by June Newton to present a selection of their own photographic work. This will be complemented with memorabilia from their decades-long and close friendship with Helmut and June Newton. Some of Mark Arbeit's pictures are formally quite unusual. In his photo-technical experiments with deconstructed Polaroids enlarged onto photo paper, he reveals the other, flip side of the photographic image and its creation. Arbeit makes reference to experimental phases in the history of nude photography, for example in Surrealism. In another series, he portrays nudes in Parisian artist ateliers. The painters themselves are absent, represented only through their works on the easels and walls. The nudes in the studio medially paraphrase the paintings through their presence. George Holz looks to the female form, naked and life-sized, in interiors or natural settings. Some of his more stylized images evoke stills from early Fritz Lang films, while others are strictly unaccessorized - such as his photograph of Rachele, reclining poolside in Hollywood. The reciprocal sexual attraction often evident in his images evokes a pastoral affinity reaching towards a mystical fusion of man and nature. What captures Holz's eye here is timeless, natural nudity, occasionally cast by refined shadows varying subtly across the body's surfaces. Just Loomis opts for a direct and unadorned look at American everyday life. In black & white and color, we see the faces of young waitresses, skateboarders or passers-by looking back at us, uninvolved and unaffected. Independent projects that have emerged from his magazine work in fashion and beauty, or images from on the road. Hardly anything seems staged - these are intensely visual encounters with strangers. Timeless and yet contemporary, the portraits of Just Loomis play with the beauty of the moment. Matthias Harder