Andrea Modica’s work is colorless at face value, but fascinating and vivid the deeper you gaze. The soft glow of Modica’s platinum prints creates a connection with the viewer. Along with the distinguished Larry Fink sequencing, Modica has turned unpublished work into As We Wait. From landscape to nudity in many different forms, Modica also doesn’t stray far from leaving the strange out, such as lips dangerously close to a dead bird and a horse in the shower. Fink asks and answers the question in order to help make the connection, “The viewer is constantly suspended between future tense and past dread, between a sensual lust and a limpid patina.” Fink sets up Modica’s work to succeed in responding to his words through familiar scenarios and images the audience would never have thought would have fit into the puzzle.
The very first image that is seen is two men within the same space. One is younger, shirtless, and in a pool that is sitting in front of an older man that is sitting outside of the pool, fully dressed, and looking away. A quiet steam rises from the water, dividing the two more. This photograph alone can serve as the statement for As We Wait. The young man looking into his prospects and all that lays in front of him while the old man looks away from what he once had and the life he may have lived staying in the water. The way the book is set up, any photo that rests by itself functions as two. Modica’s photograph technique shines through to guide the viewer through the past and future that has been created in the book.
Another theme that shows through the photographs is a sense of peacefulness every subject has emitting from the image. Even though laying naked in the forest set up next to an injured horse in hay, Modica finds a way to put the viewer in a tranquil state. As you get lost looking into Modica’s prints, the thought of the tension of past and future lurking around fades into the background. The cohesiveness of her work that can flow so seamlessly together when it wasn’t intended to be grouped as a whole also plays to the idea of a “future tense and past dread”. At one point, these images for meant for a different project ending and were met with the same fate of being cut. Now given new life, they look back on the past life they once had living away from eyes of onlookers.
The team of Modica and Fink form a powerhouse of different views within the same idea behind As We Wait. What some work hard to try to accomplish as an easy look and feel, the photographic talent of Modica and the knowledge of Fink leave no room for error in creating the same ideal at every turn. Every time the book is opened, more detail is found to relate to the future and past. Modica’s collection in As We Wait is not only a beautiful theme, but one that showcases her talent flawlessly.
If you are interested in purchasing As We Wait, you can purchase it on the L’Artiere website. Signed copies are available.
Written by Madison Rich
Photographs by Madison Rich