Handled with Care

SAM TAYLOR-WOOD'S PORTRAITS OF FRAGILITY

Proud men, strong men, famous men, men used to being in control of their emotions, of their public images. Sam Taylor-Wood's "Portraits of Sadness," one of two series in her show "Sorrow, Suspension, Ascension," which opens this month at New York's Matthew Marks Gallery, features photographs of actors crying. Among her subjects: Robert Downey Jr.f Paul Newman, Willem Dafoe, Peter O'Toole, Laurence Fishburne. "It was about finding the vulnerable side of their iconic status," says Taylor-Wood. "The majority really are crying; some are acting, and most went into proper floods of tears. Some started crying before I even put film in the camera." At 37, Taylor-Wood embraces the contradiction between intimacy and fame, the blurring of public and private. Her own life is lived large—she and her husband, art dealer Jay Jopling, are among London's hottest couples, yet their great successes are tinged by Taylor-Wood's battles with cancer. In the other series of images, "Self Portraits Suspended," Taylor-Wood brilliantly captures the inescapable fact of life's fragility. "I hired a bondage expert, Master Rope Knot, and spent the day with him tying me up in different positions, and then I digitally took out all the ropes. The idea was to have something that was incredibly constrictive, restrictive, and painful and have it look so light, effortless, and free—to be caught in that nowhere space where you don't know if you're here or there or if you're going to stay or not, the not knowing." The self-portraits are that rare thing, perfect art, intense, beautiful, blazingly articulate. Taylor-Wood has made so much new work in recent months that only a portion of it will fit in the gallery. "I've never been this prolific—I never made so much work in my lifetime."

A. M. HOMES