Creative Relationships
Melanie Manchot
Melanie Manchot is well known for her unique photographic
portraits.
The City Gallery commissioned Melanie to create
three portraits of some of the disabled people and artists
partnered by adorn, equip for the purpose of commissioning exhibits.
Each portrait is made up of three sections forming a triptych.
Creative collaboration has been central to the
way in which
the exhibits were produced for adorn, equip.
Melanie’s portraits focus on the different kinds of relationship
forged between artist and client.
For Melanie herself, the nature of creative collaborations
has been a continuing fascination.
Collaborations of this kind are a meeting point between individuals,
each with their own concerns and their own way of experiencing the world.
Rather than just recording a likeness of each
artist/client pair,
Melanie wanted to tap into the chemistry between people
and explore the exchange of ideas that took place in each partnership.
She used conversations between each artist and client
as a basis for the text element of each portrait.
These dialogues work with the images
to sum up the unique process by which each exhibit developed,
the ‘magic moment’ in which everything just seemed to come together.
In each portrait, the partners of each creative
collaboration
are placed by Melanie at opposite ends of the triptych,
with the conversation that sparked the creative process
forming a bridge between them.
Melanie Manchot's new book 'Love is a stranger' is published by Prestel.
© The City Gallery, Leicester and the artists: 2001
This site was built by Ju Gosling aka ju90 during an artist's residency at Oriel 31 in November 2001