Gym series, 2021
by Gibson Switzer
This series consists of a pair of staged tableaux photographs that portray me and my two friends working out in a home gym. The gym is in the basement of my friend’s home, where he resides with a group of university athletes. This location is exemplary of the grimy, so-called manly aesthetic that typifies college frat culture.
Using objects found in the gym and within the home, I staged the pictured scene to exaggerate the sense of macho culture already present in the space. The heightened sense of masculinity is an illusion, as it does not necessarily exist in the reality I experience. Instead, this amplified machismo creates a humorous and ironic effect.
These photographs, while partially documentary in nature, represent the ambiguous nature of photographic “truth,” in that they magnify certain aspects of the real-life experience of and feeling in this space. Through the process of meticulously staging the set, dramatically lighting the scene, and capturing a moment of tension, I aim to evoke the work of the Vancouver School of conceptual photographers as well as classical history painting.
