‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

© Stephen Tayo / Aperture

‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

From the series, ” Hafız: Guardians of the Qur’an “

‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

Subway platform. New York City. USA.1980

“I took this image on the elevated M Line at the Myrtle Avenue-Wyckoff Avenue stop in Bushwick, Brooklyn, as part of my Subway series. I saw this wonderful color-play between the two women – one wore a yellow dress with green shoes, the other was in red. As I was getting ready to click the shutter, the wind caught the dress of the women in yellow. It wasn’t blowing it up around her knees like a Marilyn Monroe picture, it was just fluffing it. It was a delicate moment.”
– Bruce Davidson

‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

Agata. Neuilly-Plaisance, France. September 4, 2018.

“With Agata, I explore the complexities of the photographic enterprise, grappling with the relationship between photographer and subject. By diving deep into a collaborative working dynamic, we create a small alternate universe that raises more questions than it offers answers: Who made these images? Who is the subject? Who is Agata? This project is both the story of a young woman searching for identity, by playing with it as if it were a toy, and the story of myself experimenting with the fragility of photographic authorship.In this photograph you see Agata as Germaine. Germaine is the owner of the house in Paris Agata squatted and lived in for a while. We find Germaine’s diaries, the seven urns of her dead cats, photos, videos, clothes and long lists of films she still wanted to watch. We drink wine out of her glasses, Agata sleeps in her bed, and with the help of a medium, we call Germaine’s spirit. Agata makes Germaine’s life hers. While we imagine being her, we dress up as the old lady and hope to go to Corsica soon, to waterski, something we are sure Germaine would have loved to do.”
– Bieke Depoorter

‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

For Freedoms/Aperture

‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

Kesh Angels, Marrakesh, 2010/1431. 2010

“I like to push people’s buttons. Here, I wanted to play with the way veiled women riding motorbikes might seem jarring from 
a Western perspective. I called them Kesh Angels—with Kesh short for Marrakech, and Angels from the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. In a few images, they’re wearing their own clothing. The only props I gave them were some socks and heart-shaped sunglasses, just to have a bit of fun with the cliché of rock stars or bikers in leather jackets.

There were four cinemas in my town when I was growing up in Morocco. I remember the movie posters they’d put in their windows. They had these powerful single images your mind could latch onto, allowing anyone who couldn’t afford a ticket to imagine the whole film. That’s what I wanted to create here—a still from a movie you haven’t seen.”

– Hassan Hajjaj

‘Works of Imagination’ Sale Features Work of Prized Photographers

Somewhere in space. 2007.

“Imagine the future, live in the present, learn from the past.”
– Estate of Peter Marlow, 2020