Married man
Caruana, Natasha (2009) Married man. [Audio work, Exhibition/show, Photography]
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Married Man is a series of fifty-four images and sound recordings. The works are displayed in a large grid pattern, with five larger stand-alone prints; the sound is installed on a site-specific basis. The series involved investigative journalistic research, and adopts a photojournalistic mode that is deliberately anti-aesthetic. Photographs were taken on a cheap disposable camera rather than professional equipment, so the images are intentionally grainy and loosely composed, but each was later carefully printed by hand. I aimed to develop new ways of working, in particular by crossing over documentary and performance, and making the performative act of the photographer central to the work.
My project was to investigate on one level a typology of adulterers, while on another, to explore more broadly issues of trust, deception and betrayal. Use of surveillance-type techniques raised innovative questions around ethics, freedom and the position of women. Married Man extended my practice-based research concerned with infidelity in the contemporary western world and with the performance of masculine identity. It raises questions about the ethics and protocols of documentary practice: the use of surveillance-type techniques gives a new voice to the normally silenced ‘mistress’ stereotype. Married Man might be thought of as almost an antithesis of Cindy Sherman’s work: the desiring male subjects’ expectations and fantasies of womanhood are exposed, rather than the range of roles which women are asked to adopt.
The series was intended to challenge and extend existing definitions of the documentary genre. It received funding from the Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art and has been exhibited internationally. Shows include: The Trace of an Act, Paraty Em Foco Photo festival, Brazil, 2011; Married Man and Other Stories: Solo Show, Photofusion, London, 2012; Narratives and Narrative Forms, Lianzhou Foto Festival, China, 2012; Get it Louder, The Orange Gallery, Beijing, China, 2012.
Natasha Caruana's work has been reviewed in the following publications:
Specialten Magazine, 'Married Man' Issue 22, 2008
Art Review, 'Invisible Adversaries' by Laura Allsop, Issue 32, May 2009
BBC North East 'Breakfast with Mike Parr' March 29, 2009
Sunderland Echo '40 Married Men Wanted an Affair with Me' by Jennifer Newton, March 2009
British Journal of Photography, 'Natasha Caruana's Married Men' by Diane Smyth, Vol 157, Issue No. 7781, October 2010
BBC 'Natasha Caruana's Secret Subjects' by Phil Coombs, 3rd February 2012
1000 words magazine, 'Natasha Caruana The Married Man Exhibition review' by Louise Clements, 23rd March 2012
Photomonitor: Natasha Caruana / Married Man and Other Stories by Riikka Kuittinen, March 2012
Esquire Magazine Russia, 'Get hooked on infidelity', July 2012
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