LONDON, Laura

Lightjet cibachrome

30 x 30"

In her practice as a photographer, Laura London explores the inner life of teens. In the summer of 1996 London met and befriended Naomi, a punk rock teenager whom she photographed several times. London came to see that the tough and seemingly invulnerable person Naomi projected was actually masking a sweet, young girl. For Rickels, adolescents are representations of the unconscious, as they absorb and reflect all manner of mass media which in turn represents our secret wishes and desires. In an essay on London’s work, Rickels explains his thoughts, even co-opting a manner similar to the way teens typically talk: “London is an explorer of the Teen Age, you know the age, like, you know, I don’t know, the one we live in. The teen in our midst, the inner teen, is the measure and metabolism of what’s most pressing right now on the edge of the time to come.”

1998

LONDON, Laura

United States, b. 1969

Gift of Laurence A. Rickels

2011.004.044