Difficult Lives

Illness is an especially personal experience. But One on One, a new show at the Minnesota Center for Photography featuring the work of New York–based photographers Annabel Clark and Arlene Gottfried, dares to expose the raw vulnerability of the profoundly ill that is normally concealed by layers of self-consciousness and social convention.

“Our projects make a really interesting pair,” says Clark. “We both deal with the ways in which illness has changed someone close to us, physically and mentally.”

Clark photographed her mother, actress Lynn Redgrave, during Redgrave’s treatment for breast cancer. Clark follows her mother through a year of private struggle—sitting up in bed after surgery, crying in a doctor’s office, floating in a pool with her head bare and eyes closed. “There are a lot of raw emotions in the pictures that she didn’t show to anyone, with or without a camera. But when she was having a bad day and needed to let go, she did it in front of me,” says Clark. “I was able to look at her changing body through a lens and find what I saw interesting and beautiful.”

Gottfried photographed Midnight, a Puerto Rican man with schizophrenia, over a period of two decades. For her, the line between photographer and friend was all but nonexistent. “This never was a project at all. It was a friendship,” Gottfried says. “I never even thought [the photographs] were anything until I put them together in chronological order, told the story, and showed the photographs to people, many of whom broke down and cried.” She captures Midnight in moods ranging from somber to ecstatic, reflecting his erratic inner life all too clearly. Says Gottfried, “This is a drama about a life, but a difficult one.” Through July 29. Minnesota Center for Photography, 165 13th Ave. NE, Mpls., 612-824-5500

Reach Stephanie Xenos at stephaniexenos@yahoo.com.