Photographer Shawn Mortensen's career is not based simply on being a visual provocateur crashing through those polite genre boundaries between fashion, reportage and fine art; it has everything to do with his uncanny ability to locate sensation outside the peripheries of our understanding. "Almost all of my work is self-generated," he explains. "It is usually done privately, totally un-commissioned and then put out in the world." That's the kind of cultural advocacy that allows this adventure-driven photographer to consistently spot new young talents before they hit the pop-culture radar. When Mortensen photographed Tupac Shakur 14 years ago, Shakur said, "This is the guy who did Dre with a gun to his head. What're you going to do for me?" Presciently, Mortensen thought to have the rapper pose in a straitjacket. With wit, style, politics and psychology, Mortensen amps up the emotional content of photography louder than the rest of the pack.
Out of Mind, the title of Mortensen's new monograph published by Abrams Image, is about as apt for his pictures' effect on us as it is for his intended reference: "[T]he way I come back from these extraordinary adventures, you know, with a long beard, having no idea what I'm stepping out of." Better than we ever could, Mortensen describes his art as a kind of "cultural car crash." More to the point, the impact on the viewer is the collision, which makes for a keen personal proximity to the aesthetic strategy behind his work. Mediation and madness are like that. At least, that's the way you start to think when Mortensen explains why his portrait of a then-unknown Salma Hayek faces his photo of Zapatista rebels in Chiapas. Hayek had come to a slide show when the uprising first started, and as usual Mortensen recognized her talents long before the rest of the world.
Photograph by Shawn Mortensen
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