Photographer Mona Kuhn reflects on mysticism and modernism in Joshua Tree
The Brazilian artist ventures into the desert for a new series, She Disappeared into Complete Silence, capturing her muse in Robert Stone’s golden Acido Dorado house
![Photo by Mona Kuhn of the shadow of a woman on a rocky background](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/8aga7eDqLZ2hw8KzJPQXjU-415-80.jpg)
A modernist glass house on the edge of Joshua Tree is the setting for artist Mona Kuhn’s mysterious new series, She Disappeared into Complete Silence, released as a book published by Steidl. The desert terrain of the southeastern Californian national park, known for its Joshua trees and distinctive boulders, has attracted campers, climbers, stargazers and psychedelic lovers for years. It has been the subject and site for numerous works of art, and more recently, a place where artists have bought property for weekend getaways from LA (Ed Ruscha is one them).
Brazilian-born artist Mona Kuhn, known for her close to life-size nudes, headed out into the wilderness with an old friend, Jacintha, to shoot an experimental project at Robert Stone’s gilded Acido Dorado, built on five acres of high desert. The single story minimalist structure mirrors the golden hues of its surroundings, in turn becoming ‘an extension of my own camera and optics,’ Kuhn explains. ‘These translucent surfaces offered a great setting for reflections and at times worked as a prism for the light.’
‘I was drawn to the desert because of its magical light and raw mystic landscape,’ she says. The house and its remote location was the ideal stage for experimentation and to ‘push the boundaries of representation’. The artist adds: ‘I wanted to escape the body and photograph the human presence coming in and out of evidence, at times over exposed, at times hidden in shadows, like a desert mirage, a solitary figure who could have been the very first or last.’
The series introduces abstraction into Kuhn’s practice for the first time, and moves between the landscape and the figure, navigating between nature and culture, meaning and being. ‘It was important for me to embrace abstraction,’ says the artist. ‘For example, [there is] a sequence of images which is crucial to these works: it goes from a gradual straight image of landscape as the sun goes below the horizon line, to its refracted twilight colours onto the Mylar surface to the same image now stretched onto a large glass panel, where you recognise the landscape and its sunset colourations, but with the ambiguous silhouette of Jacintha. The abstraction of the image itself is what I was looking for.’ Likewise, the suggestive cover, recalling a Lucio Fontana painting, is a simple slit down the middle, ‘as if you would split open the image as you open the book’.
Timeless and trippy, the photographs are testimony to the unique effects of the desert environment – a place for deep enquiry and to ruminate on the essence of being human. ‘She has unfolding meanings. It refers not just to the single figure, but also the endless horizon lines running into infinity, and the lines rendered from thoughts,’ as Kuhn puts it.
INFORMATION
She Disappeared into Complete Silence, €45, published by Steidl
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
How the west won: Ivan McClellan is amplifying the intrepid beauty of Black cowboy culture
In his new book, 'Eight Seconds: Black Cowboy Culture', Ivan McClellan draws us into the world of Black rodeo. Wallpaper* meets the photographer ahead of his Juneteenth Rodeo
By Tracy Kawalik Published
-
‘Package Holiday 1968-1985’: a very British love affair in pictures
‘Package Holiday’ recalls tans, table tennis and Technicolor in Trevor Clark’s wistful snaps of sun-seeking Brits
By Caragh McKay Published
-
‘Art Exposed’: Julian Spalding on everything that’s wrong with the art world
In ‘Art Exposed’, Julian Spalding draws on his 40 years in the art world – as a museum director, curator, and critic – for his series of essays
By Alfred Tong Published
-
Marisol Mendez's ‘Madre’ unpicks the woven threads of Bolivian womanhood
From ancestry to protest, how Marisol Mendez’s 'Madre' is rewriting the narrative of Bolivian womanhood
By Sofia de la Cruz Published
-
Photo book explores the messy, magical mundanity of new motherhood
‘Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back’ by photographer Andi Galdi Vinko explores new motherhood in all its messy, beautiful reality
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Best contemporary art books: a guide for 2024
From maverick memoirs to topical tomes, turn over a new leaf with the Wallpaper* arts desk’s pick of new releases and all-time favourite art books
By Hannah Silver Last updated
-
The best photography books for your coffee table
Flick through, mull over and deep-dive into the best photography books on the market, from our shelves to you
By Sophie Gladstone Last updated
-
Behind the scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining: new book charts the making of a horror icon
Published in February 2023 by Taschen, a new collector's book will go behind the scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, charting the unseen making of a film that defined the horror genre
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published