MELANIE PULLEN VOYEUR
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
MELANIE PULLEN
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
VOYEUR
VOYEUR
William Turner Gallery is pleased to announce our first solo exhibition of large-scale photographs by Melanie Pullen, entitled Voyeur, May 18thJuly 6th, 2024.
The exhibition will range from Pullen’s highly acclaimed High Fashion Crime Scenes to her more recent Voyeur series, which the artist sees as a continuum of related themes.
Melanie Pullen explores our desensitization to violence and its glamorization, especially involving women, through dramatic recreations of actual crime scenes and images depicting our voyeuristic natures. Through meticulously reconstructed, theatrical compositions, Pullen depicts scenes which examine social constructs and their taboos. Engaging in a critical dialogue of ‘forensic aesthetics’, Pullen interrogates and seduces with images that challenge our presumptions and raise ethical quandaries.
As Pullen states, “I’m continuously creating imagery that questions our perceptions and our ingrained desire to observe the forbidden, to find beauty where we shouldn’t and to glamorize violence.”
Pullen’s disturbing yet captivating images, reveal the voyeuristic tendencies in us all. She self-proclaims their appropriation as exploitative as the images boldly confront societal mores through tongue-in-cheek tableaux.
In her critically acclaimed High Fashion Crime Scenes, Pullen re-imagined true unsolved crime scenes and suicides sourced from the Los Angeles and New York Coroner’s Offices and the Los Angeles Police Department’s archives. Giving herself a guideline, the subjects were never post-1950 and were always unidentified “Jane Does”.
Her elaborately detailed sets often utilized luxury brands to re-dress the macabre scenes into high-fashion photo
shoots, accentuating our tendency to sensationalize horrific acts. She addresses sexually directed violence and ushers a critique of how media often chooses to glamorize the depictions and in its wake desensitizes the audience.
Through Pullen’s lens, agency is afforded to unknowns, exhumed from the annals of a coroner’s office and resurrected in these memento mori. Due to her work and research, she is on the Los Angeles School of Forensic’s advisory board.
The counterpart to High Fashion Crime Scenes is Pullen’s recent Voyeur series, which she sees is a natural extension of the themes in her previous work.
In Voyeur, the subject’s fetishized gaze is caught in the cross-hairs of Pullen’s predatory lens. The images are dramatic and seductive, richly colored and luxuriously composed. Yet, there is also a distinctly film noir sense of menace. Stalking the stalker, the audience begins to realize that they too are complicit.
As with Crime Scenes series, Pullen cloaks her voyeurs in the couture of Prada and Marc Jacobs, further emphasizing our tendencies toward objectification, possession, materialism and commodification. Titling the series Voyeur, Pullen also suggests that there is an erotic element at play, an excitement in surreptitiously peering into someone else’s private, intimate moments.
Pullen employs cinematic lighting and staging and is inspired by film directors such as Stanley Kubrick and the French New Wave, yet her signature aesthetic was initially borne of resourcefulness. Producing her own sets, lighting and styling in a guerrilla-like process at the beginning of her career, her work has matured to where she now can employ up to one hundred people for a shoot. Working with Hasselblad and Leica cameras, has allowed Pullen blow the images up to their monumental scale.
Ferris Wheel (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, mounted on aluminum
24” x 36” Edition of 5
44” x 66” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
Watcher, in Red (Voyeur Series)
2018
Archival inkjet print, back mounted
36” x 48” Edition of 5
50” x 42” Edition of 5
Green Taxi (Taxi Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Fire (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 50” Edition of 5
44” x 61” Edition of 5
60” x 83” Edition of 5
She Sees Everything (Voyeur Series)
2018
Archival inkjet print, back mounted
48” x 36” Edition of 5
50” x 42” Edition of 5
Untitled (Voyeur Series) 2018
Archival inkjet print, back mounted
32” x 25” Edition of 5
50” x 42” Edition of 5
The Stalker (Voyeur Series) 2018
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Lauren (Metro Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
“My goal is that the last thing you’Il notice is the crime.”
“It was all crime photos taken from the 1910s into the 1940s,” she says. “I was fascinated with the details of the pictures, so fascinated I totally overlooked the crime scenes altogether.”
Pullen was also struck by the work of mid20th century newspaper photographer Weegee, who was adept at capturing the dark corners of urban life. His crime scene photos owe their allure not to the depiction of the crime itself, but rather to the minutiae within the frame, the fragments of the familiar sitting passively next to the catastrophic.
“What really interested me were the details inside the pictures,” Pullen says. “The life of the people involved, the perfume bottle on the dresser, the knockedover lamp. For me, that was the mystery behind those photographs. Those people’s stories.”
Los Angeles Times, Interview By JESSICA HUNDLEYUntitled (Metro Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Yellow Cab (Taxi Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2003
Inkjet archival print, mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Phones (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
The Watcher (Voyeur Series)
2018
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Wittgenstein once said: “For life in the present there is no death. Death is not an event in life. It is not a fact in the world,” and, while the aesthetic accomplishment of Pullen’s photographs may dull the horror of what they depict, there is no abstraction from the very real event of death, only distraction. The dresses, shoes, models and scenery are alluring, the subject itself should be repelling, but somehow isn’t. Death is at once highlighted and obscured; and it leaves the viewer in an awkward position. . . But to direct an accusation of voyeurism at the audience is as redundant as levelling accusations of morbidity at the artist, and for the same reason: this is art, and you can stare all you want. There is a story behind every photograph, one which it is as fascinating for the viewer to experience as it is for Pullen to tell, though she does so with a disconcerting esotericism. You may find yourself studying the items on a dresser, for example, before noticing that its mirror is reflecting a corpse.
Luke CrisellIndependent On Sunday Review
Red (Water Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Boudicca and the Bridge
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
80” x 53” Edition of 5
Last Light (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
80” x 53” Edition of 5
Yellow Street (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 32” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Main Hall (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Stairs (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
80” x 53” Edition of 5
Red Phone (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
Station (Metro Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Miyake (Metro Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Juliette Goodbye (Femme Fatale, Juliette Lewis Series) 2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted
36” x 26” Edition of 5
Juliette Smoking (Femme
Fatale, Juliette Lewis Series) 2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted
36” x 26” Edition of 5
Blue (Water Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Untitled (Water Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
The best fashion photographs can remind us of other works of art or expand the boundaries of the genre, redefining what a fashion photograph is supposed to do or be.
The photographs that do both are the ones that excite me the most. For example, the work of Melanie Pullen (b. 1975) represents a relatively new type of fashion photograph — one that was made for artistic reasons and celebrated by the fashion press after the fact. Based on crimescene photographs that she found in police archives in Los Angeles and New York City, Pullen’s work reverses the aspirational nature of most fashion photographs, celebrating instead the darkly romantic idea of dying young, beautiful, and well dressed. As an image of suicide, Half Prada flies in the face of the industry’s claim: buy our products and your life will improve. The waistdown cropping keeps what would have been the picture’s most disturbing aspect out of the frame, while the undone shoe strap becomes, in Roland Barthes’ terminology, “the punctum disrupting the perfection of the image.” The viewer is simultaneously attracted to and repelled by an image that is virtually impossible to forget.
Paul Martineau Curator of PhotographyThe J. Paul Getty Museum
Half Prada (Hanging Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
80” x 53” Edition of 5
Red Stockings (Hanging Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 36” Edition of 5
58” x 44” Edition of 5
80” x 60” Edition of 5
Choo (Hanging Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 34” Edition of 5
58” x 42” Edition of 5
80” x 57” Edition of 5
Carlights (High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Vintage and Fog II (Barrel Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 67” Edition of 5
60” x 91” Edition of 5
L.A. River (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
80” x 53” Edition of 5
Rene’s Tree (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
Dorothy (Barrel Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
Desert Barrel (Barrel Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
Zanotti’s Sunflare (Barrel Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
24” x 36” Edition of 5
44” x 66” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
Ocean (Barrel Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
48” x 32” Edition of 5
58” x 38” Edition of 5
80” x 53” Edition of 5
2004
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
40” x 30” Edition of 5
52” x 36” Edition of 5
Oscars Grass (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5 Mr. Rossi (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
Mary Jane (Haunted Series)
2008
Archival pigment, back mounted
44” x 72” Edition of 5
60” x 78” Edition of 5
Ring of Fire (Mexico City Series)
2018
Archival print, back mounted
22” x 30” Edition of 5
36” x 44” Edition of 5
Pier (High Fashion Crime Scenes) 2005
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 44” Edition of 5
44” x 60” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
Vegas (High Fashion Crime Scenes), 2003
Archival inkjet print, back mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
Blurry Taxi (Taxi Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2003
Archival inkjet print, mounted on aluminum
36” x 54” Edition of 5
44” x 65” Edition of 5
60” x 90” Edition of 5
The Red Shoes (High Fashion Crime Scenes)
2023
Archival inkjet print, back mounted
44” x 57” Edition of 5
60” x 80” Edition of 5
MELANIE PULLEN
Born in New York City in 1975, Melanie Pullen is a self-taught fine-art photographer raised in a family of photojournalists, publishers, and artists. Growing up within the halls of the famed Hotel Chelsea, Pullen was immersed in this avantgarde setting, which greatly informed her artistic practice. Bi-coastal from an early age, Melanie spent her formative years between New York City and Los Angeles.
Pullen’s work focuses extensively on both social values and taboos while purposely taking aim at the media’s exploitation of sex, gender, and violence. Pullen herself has noted that she targets society’s obsessive glamorization by literally re-dressing what are deeply disturbing events, forcing the viewer to question their own values and observations.
Her photography has been shown in major museums and galleries internationally: it is permanently in the holdings of many of the most prominent public and private collections around the world: Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Jacksonville, Florida; The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California; Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; Howard Stein & the Forward Thinking Collection, New York, New York; Walker Art Center Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Rand Collection, Santa Monica, California.
Most recently the Getty Museum acquired several pieces from her High Fashion Crime Scenes which now reside in their permanent collection after being included in their exhibition: Icons of Style: 100 Years of Fashion Photography.
Pullen’s work has been featured in a number of publications including: The New York Times, T Magazine; Los Angeles Times; Vogue; Esquire Magazine; ELLE; London’s Independent; Spin Magazine; W Magazine; Flaunt Magazine; 1814 Magazine; Rolling Stone Magazine and Vanity Fair.
Melanie was awarded the D&D Yellow Pencil Award in 2007 and has published three photography books, two with Nazraeli Press, the other with Kodansha. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
MELANIE PULLEN
Born in NYC 1975. Currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
EXHIBITIONS:
2024 Voyeur, William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, California
2021 Hidden Agenda, SNMOA Museum, Seoul, Korea
2021 Daegu Art Center National Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2020 Survey, Museum of Art and History (and LACMA), Los Angeles, California
2019 Icons of Style Photography, The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
2018 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
2018 Leica Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2017 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Vanilla Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2016 High Fashion Crime Scenes, A series of Live Performances, LA Art Show, Los Angeles, California
2015 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Vanilla Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2015 Soda Pop!, Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, California
2015 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Paris Photo, Awarded Emerging Artist Exhibition
2014 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Vanilla Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2011 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Florida
2009 Violent Times, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2009 Violent Times, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco
2008 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California
2007 High Fashion Crime Scenes, MiCamera, Milan, Italy
2006 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Whitewall Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2005 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills, California
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2016 We The People, Biennale of Casablanca, Morocco
2016 High Fashion Crime Scenes, The Frederick R. Wiesman Museum of Art, Malibu, California
2016 Material Culture, William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art Kwan Fong Gallery of Art and Culture, Los Angeles, California
2015 Director’s Pick, Jenkins-Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, California
2015 Midnight, Vanilla Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2015 Director’s Pick, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2014 Director’s Pick, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2013 Affordable Care, Flaunt, Mana Wynwood, Miami, Florida
2011 Glimmer, Jumex Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico
2011 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Florida
2010 High Fashion Crime Scenes, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Malibu, California
2010 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Linfield Gallery, Portland, Oregon
2008 Violent Times, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2008 Dreams of Promise and Peril, The Warehouse Gallery, Syracuse University, New York
2008 Photos and Phantasy: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California
2008 Art and Illusion: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Blue Line Gallery, Roseville, California
2007 Tell me a Story: Narrative Photography Now, (MOPA) Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California 2007 The Eclectic Eye: Selections from the The Frederick R. Wiesman Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), New Orleans, Louisiana
2007 Personal Views, Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA), San Diego, California
2005 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills, California
PUBLISHED BOOKS / MONOGRAPHS
XY, KODANSHA PRESS, 2020 (100 Pages)
HIGH FASHION CRIME SCENES, NAZRAELI PRESS, 2006 (100 Pages)
MELANIE PULLEN, MOAH CATALOGUE OF SURVEY EXHIBITION, 2019 (102 Pages)
JULIETTE, NAZRAELI PRESS, 2013 (20 PAGES)
ICONS OF STYLE, CATALOGUE OF EXHIBITION, GETTY PRESS, 2018
ARTWISE CONTEMPORARY, PUBLISHED BY JOHN WILEY & SONS, 2007
SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California; Colección Jumex, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Jacksonville, Florida; The Frederick R. Wiesman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California; Nasher Museum of Contemporary Art, North Carolina; Howard Stein & The Forward Thinking Collection, New York, New York; Walker Art Center Museum, Minnesota; The Rand Collection, Santa Monica, California
SELECTED BOOK COVERS
Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis, Cover Art; White Shotgun, April Smith, Cover Art
SELECTED ALBUM COVERS
Beck, Guero Book, Special Edition Cover, Inside Cover, Album Guero’ Beck, The Information AWARDS
D&AD Award, The Yellow Pencil Award 2009 The Black Cat Gallery, Darkwave, Culver City, CA
2009 The Black Cat Gallery, Black Cat Festival, Culver City, CA
2009 The Black Cat Gallery, Black Cat Festival, Culver City, CA
2009 Eric Phleger Gallery, In A Different Light, Leucadia, CA
2009 The Black Cat Gallery, Power Trip, Culver City, CA
2009 Deborah Page Gallery, Material Boundaries, Santa Monica, CA
2003 Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
1988 Newport Harbor Art Museum, Skeptical Beliefs, Newport Beach, CA
1987 Fondazione Michetti Rome, Italy
MELANIE PULLEN
VOYEUR
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY