{"id":1729,"date":"2022-12-01T15:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T20:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/jess-t-dugan-look-at-me-like-you-love-me-clamp\/"},"modified":"2023-01-11T21:59:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T02:59:07","slug":"jess-t-dugan-look-at-me-like-you-love-me-clamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/reviews\/jess-t-dugan-look-at-me-like-you-love-me-clamp\/","title":{"rendered":"Jess T. Dugan: Look at me like you love me | CLAMP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One way to describe love might be \u201cempathy in action.\u201d <em>Look at me like you love me<\/em>, Jess Dugan\u2019s exhibition at <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/clampart.com\/2022\/10\/look-at-me-like-you-love-me\/#thumbnails\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/clampart.com\/2022\/10\/look-at-me-like-you-love-me\/#thumbnails\" target=\"_blank\">CLAMP<\/a> through January 7, asks viewers to regard their subjects with empathy, to recognize and acknowledge another\u2019s experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dugan\u2019s work has long been an exercise in queer representation, and their subjects exist on a spectrum of gender and sexual identity. In these images of individuals and couples, Dugan creates a sense of intimacy between the viewer and subject. Influenced early on by portrait photographers including Catherine Opie, Dugan suggests that presenting oneself, unedited, in front of the camera can be a radical act. \u201cI want to tell you things; I want you to know my story,\u201d Dugan writes in the exhibition\u2019s wall text. \u201cThere is so much I can\u2019t say in my photographs, though it\u2019s all there, just below the surface, if you know what to look for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/oskar-and-zach-embrace-2020-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1785 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1920px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1920\/2560;\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/oskar-and-zach-embrace-2020-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1785\"\/><\/noscript><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u00a9Jess T. Dugan, <i>Oskar and Zach (embrace)<\/i>, 2020. Courtesy the artist and CLAMP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Look at me like you love me<\/em> feels like a call to action, a plea for compassion and understanding. Many of the portraits are set in intimate spaces \u2013 a bedroom, a bathtub. Some subjects present a frank and open gaze to the photographer; others look away from the camera \u2013 like <em>Kalven (looking down)<\/em> \u2013 or embrace each other protectively, like <em>Shira and Sarah<\/em>. All of Dugan\u2019s subjects have allowed themselves to be vulnerable in front of the camera, and Dugan responds with respect and grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Punctuating the portraits are moments of respite: a bedroom in Boston, wisteria dangling near a fence, a sunrise seen through a window, a stream of light, a flower, a trickle of water. These images are like portraits without a subject, images of people who are absent or missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dugan includes self-portraits at the beginning and end of the exhibition, one in which they are clothed, the other shirtless, revealing top-surgery scars and tattoos (one of which says \u201cfighter\u201d). Other subjects are from Dugan\u2019s own community, including their partner, Vanessa Fabbre, photographed floating peacefully in the water in Provincetown, Rhode Island. Even encircled by dark water, Fabbre seems resilient and self-possessed, emotions that extend across the exhibition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bookended by self-portraits, an exibition explores intimacy and identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"1611,6926,7187,7366,6760,18447,7261,7374,7188,7339,6960,14915","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[65,5128,66],"issues":[31],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/photographmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}