“Swimming in a sea of overlapping references – to Surrealist masterworks and celebrity culture, to photographic history and pop music, to the endless scroll of social media interfaces or the familiar visual codes of advertising – Baby Blue Benzo, like many of Cwynar’s past projects, is a dizzying interrogation of how images shape real-world value, of how photographs are mobilised to cultivate consumer lust. Blending collage, performance, installation, still and moving images, her approach is fragmented, layered and rarely ever didactic; far from peering in on the thrills and ramifications of our late-capitalist economy, there’s a sense instead that Cwynar weaves her kaleidoscopic tale from its core, tangled up somewhere in the muddy midst.”
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It’s always fun to write about work that’s inspired me for some time. Back in 2016, when I first encountered work by Sara Cwynar (
@cwynars ) as an Editorial Intern at Foam Magazine (
@foam_magazine ), I was enthralled; almost ten years on, my reflections on her recent innovations can be found in Foam Magazine #67: The Test of Time, a special 25th anniversary issue.
Thanks, as ever, to the excellent Katy Hundertmark (
@katyhundertmark ) and the whole Foam Magazine team!
All images © Sara Cwynar
