Thursday, May 9, 2013

McDermott & McGough


Not only is that art of McDermott & McGough a simulation but so was their lives for a long time.  They very much took the words of Baudrillard very seriously.  From the early 80’s to 1995 all parts of their lives were a simulation of a bygone era.  During this time there work focused mainly on the creation of period photographic pieces.  They would use an old form of photography but also have their subject dressed in period clothing and posed as they would have been from that period.  And beyond there work, they lived their lives as a period piece.  They would dress as turn of the century “men about town” and even converted there house to be completely turn of the century.

However, in 1995 they stopped living in this manner, and that is when there work became very interesting.  They continued in the same manner that they had before only now their work also took on new implications.  Once they stopped living in the past they let the present begin to influence their images.  While still period pieces they let used them as a mirror against the modern world to show just what little progress we have really made.


Cigarette Break, 1958
McDermott & McGough
2007