Let's Party by Jessica Craig-Martin

Cougar Friends by Jessica Craig-Martin

Greetings, collectors! Today’s oh-so-special editions—Let’s Party and Cougar Friends—are by none other than Jessica Craig-Martin, who so delightfully (and devilishly) bridges the worlds of art, fashion and high society. I couldn't think of a more perfect time to add Jessica to our roster, here in the height of the fall social season, as we are feverishly finalizing our plans for the Miami art fairs. Her photographs capture the off moments of glittering fetes and $10,000-a-plate benefits that attendees would prefer go unnoticed, and yet the end products are so perfectly framed as to underscore their untouchable wealth, prestige and power.

The world Jessica irreverently captures is so very glamorous and decadent. It's hard to resist letting at least some small pang of envy slip in: couture! jewels! riches! influence! With my own resistance worn down, I might even imagine wanting to be there for a moment. And then I remember my own (and relatively few) experiences as a last minute addition to a not-quite-full table at those $10K/plate dinners and how it made me feel: like the awkward, not-quite-cool-enough teenager I used to be. Also: how my feet hurt. A lot. And maybe my dress was pinching and I was probably too warm or too cold, or worried about ruining a piece of clothing or a handbag I'd borrowed.

It's precisely these socially awkward moments that Jessica so aptly conveys, down to her use of framing and cropping, as she writes in her artist statement:

The angle of a shot can convey the particular combination of levity and anxiety one can feel in social situations. My art dealer once called it my “drunken lens.” The photographs that work best for me have a sense of human fragility. Unrealized dreams; our perverse optimism as we swim upstream like salmon in order to mate, find love, security, money, power, to retain youth against all odds and evidence. One is never so naked as when dressed for a party.

JCM's slices of life*—garish jewel tones and the obliterating whites of her aggressive flashbulb—expose something that's even more un-ignorable in the current political and economic climate: These are the 1%**, among their own ilk. (JCM herself is somewhat of an ambiguous mix of attendee and reporter.) And, there's a certain comfort and privacy in being in a defined group of people who you know to be just like you, and that feeling of safety and familiarity exists across all kinds of people—it definitely adds another dimension to how I see the work.

Me? I'm firmly in the 99% camp, economically and philosophically, and I'm also fortunate enough to have grown up into being a person who is pretty happy with who she is, and who has interacted enough in those circles to know I wouldn't want to change places in a million years. So I find the images fascinating, gaudily beautiful and simultaneously funny and sad. And that combination of feelings makes me want to live with these photographs, if only to remember not all that glitters is gold.

— Jen

*I say slices of life rather than subjects on account of JCM's deft amputations and decapitations. It's almost cruel, and yet, somehow they seem like they kinda had it coming.

**Here I am acknowledging the political without the intention of politicizing. Some of my best friends are 1%-ers!