Andy Best Fall Series
All images © Andy Best, 2006 courtesy Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide First page: Fall Series (Knox) VI (detail)
Andy Best’s Fall Series has captured the attention of the art world and secured his position as an exciting young artist; subsequently his work has been exhibited internationally, and appears in collections in the UK, Norway, Sweden and the US. Fall is an important series because of the ways in which it transmits a social message and at the same time engages with the medium of photography. Although the images appear as straight, realistic, photographs they have a surreal and uncanny edge as young adults appear to free-fall out of buildings. As we focus on the faces of the fallers we realise that they seem to be in a dream-like space, as if they’ve slipped from one reality into another, blissfully unaware of the grimy urban sites that they inhabit and some viewers may wonder if drugs have induced this trance-like state or whether we are watching a fantasy. The series opens up these narratives without closing down on a particular theme.
Best often draws on art history, video games, film and television. Yves Klein’s Leap into the Void (1960), in which the artist jumped out of a window into the street, comes to mind when we look at Best’s series. Klein fell into a safety net but the photograph was altered and cropped so the artist appeared to be in imminent danger. Best plays with a similar idea and addresses the medium because for an instant we believe these people actually jumped or were pushed. The life/death paradox of photography – where life is frozen and time is stopped – also recurs. Fall is a compelling and amusing series which captures the imagination. Best presents young people caught in deathly moments and we are not sure whether to laugh at the trick or to be troubled by the various narratives that the series engenders. •
selected by
Anne Marsh