Mumming and Contemporary Art---Kahn and Selesnick

KahnandSelesnick

The first time I saw a Kahn and Selesnick photo I thought I was looking at an Axel Hoedt photograph of a traditional German mumming costume.

But then this:

...and I realized I was looking at something else entirely. This was my introduction to the artistic duo of Kahn and Selesnick who have a long history of working together to make fantastic installation/photographic/drawing and painting art. Their latest book is  100 Views of the Drowning World, a meditation on climate change framed in Ophelia-esque photographic portraits. They do not explicitly say that they are influenced by traditional mumming costumes (aside from a hint on their info page that states their vision may "combine absurdist fantasy and bogus anthropology) and not all of their offerings reference them, but much of their work is permeated with mumming imagery, from the foliage creatures of German and British traditions to the more colorful costumes of various Carnival parades.