The South has risen again. From the streets of Atlanta, New Orleans, and Miami a new style has arrived, one as American as sweet potato pie. Ever since Uncle Luke brought raunch to hip hop, the South has brought sizzle and flame to the culture. Fast forward a couple of decades and trap music fills the air, casting a hypnotic spell of the glamour and glory of the underworld.
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Scottish photographer Ivar Wigan (b. 1979) was drawn to document the scene for a new series of work, The Gods, currently on view at Little Big Man Gallery, Los Angeles, now through June 21, 2016. The photographs, made between 2010–15, are a portrait of a people and a place, representing the group as the sum of select parts that symbolize “the life,” including fly cars and basketball courts, pool parties and strip clubs, the air thick with vice.
Wigan takes the title of his show from the streets from which it comes, a reference to O.G.s who have survived the streets and prison system, revealing his love for the grandiose. Wigan’s work is pure Romanticism. Like his nineteenth-century European counterparts who embarked on trips to the Middle East and embraced Orientalism as a movement in art, Wigan went to a world distinct from his to connect with the “other” for reasons that speak to the romantic perspective many outsiders possess.
The photographs are infused a sensual embrace of the pleasures of the flesh in the here and now. Yet at the same time, Wigan seeks to go beyond the temporal plane, wanting to deify the lives of regular folk. It’s a curious desire, one that speaks to the traditions of Western Art which asserts the artist as arbiter of social status for better or for worse.
With The Gods, Wigan asserts George Orwell’s belief, “All art is propaganda,” and in doing so, he throws a Jackson into the collection plate. His photographs seek to represent the world he perceives, one driven by the appearance of things. Wigan observes, “Within the community, there is a huge amount of time spent on refining the image.”
His work mimics this visual intensity, offering series of gloriously glossy, flossy affairs, capturing beauty like a butterfly collector. Wigan is clearly a fan, an unbiased one, seeking to avoid the complexities of the politics underlying the culture he documents. It’s a comfortable place for an outsider to perch. As with all romance, it’s built on faith, hope, and love—and a desire to believe that the act of giving will prove to be enough.
All photos: ©Ivar Wiggan, courtesy of Little Big Man Gallery, Los Angeles.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
