Curated by Alessandro Rabottini
Produced and realized by 10 Corso Como
With the collaboration of Gagosian, Rome / New York

Of the language of photography, Ethridge explores historical implications and contemporary paradoxes, seamlessly navigating the realms of visual art and fashion photography through a distinctive and unconventional style. In over 25 years of career, he has gained an international reputation with a practice that expands and conflates ideas of beauty, memory, commerce, and representation, questioning how images are produced and distributed as both objects of pure contemplation and as vehicles of persuasion.

Conceived especially for 10·Corso·Como, Happy Birthday Louise Parker brings together a selection of iconic photographs from the past 15 years alongside previously unreleased works, fusing themes and subjects that, at a first glance, may appear unrelated to each other: elaborate still lives, accurately staged fashion shots, melancholic landscapes, and intimate portraits. Images were skilfully juxtaposed to forge visual connections, unravel contrasts, and weave narratives, and despite the diversity of their atmospheres, what connected them all was a formal rigour that was as haunting as it was arresting, if not confrontational at times.

The exhibition draws its title from the alluring presence of Louise Parker, a model with whom Roe Ethridge collaborated with on the occasion of several fashion editorials starting from 2010. Throughout the years, the two became friends and Ethridge had the opportunity to portray Parker both inside and outside the framework of the fashion industry. We see the recurring, hypnotic image of Louise transitioning from highly stylised fashion spreads to more spontaneous, intimate portraits and back, manifesting the intertwining of life and representation, the everyday and the staged. In this collection of portraits, the gaze of the artist meets the self-aware gaze of the model, in a way that thematise and transcends the dynamic interplay between the photographer, the camera, and the subject, between the intentionality of the artistic vision and the intentionality of the pose.

Within this narrative in which Louise is present at different stages of her life – as an individual and as a model, as a woman and as a mother – Roe Ethridge inserted fragments of his own biography: a portrait of the artist together with his son at the age of 5 (Me and Auggie), his own sinked car salvaged from a muddy river in Belle Glade, the city in Florida where his mother grew up and where his parents met in High School (Durango in the Canal), more recent portraits of his children taken during moments of leisure (Lee Lou at Sunset Park Ferry Terminal, Auggie with Racoon Tail), and a digitally manipulated portrait of the artist at his 52nd birthday party (Birthday Multiply), the result of the superimposition of two different images, one taken from his daughter. But even in these familial captures, Roe Ethridge’s concern for composition and the internal economy of the image becomes prominently evident, seamlessly blending personal memories with a rich knowledge of the history of photography.

The artist’s intimate world becomes then one of the subjects of the sometimes gradual and sometimes sudden effects of the temporal progression, revealing the underlying feeling that permeates the entire exhibition: that of time passing by. Within this non-linear storytelling, the relation between personal memories and the realm of fashion is revealed through the nuanced connections established between the images when installed in the space: fashion, in fact, is an ever-evolving discipline where trends emerge, flourish, and fade, each season serving as a poignant reminder of the cyclical nature of life. Through the juxtaposition of fashion shots with diaristic, autobiographical pictures, the artist looks at fashion as a cultural form that is inherently intertwined with concepts of transience and ephemerality, a language that mirrors and magnifies the temporal nature of human existence. Through his lens, Ethridge captures the delicate balance between creation and decay, between the perfect moment and its inevitable disintegration, between pleasure and consumption. In this sense, the best wishes expressed in the title of the exhibition (“happy birthday”) also function as an indicator of the passage of time, evoking both a sense of euphoric anticipation and the feeling of inner reflection that often accompanies us on our birthday.

In more than one photograph (Pic ‘n Clip Glitch NFT, Pic ‘n Clip 3), Ethridge introduces an additional layer of transparency, by revealing the operations of image selection, editing, and post-production. The results are collaged compositions of superimposed pictures that not only offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creative process, but also manifests how images exist in a continuous flux of different formats, media, devices, and functions. Ultimately, Roe Ethridge’s practice is an energetic yet contemplative exploration of the many spaces that the same image can occupy, from that of seductive advertisement to that of mundane elegy.