Marco Sanges’ works are peopled by uncanny, larger than life characters. His untidy troupe of old money and sugar daddies wear their powdered wigs and brylcremed toupees at jaunty angles. From lavish opium dens gentlemen peer out suspiciously through tobacco-smoked monocles. Blindfolded and androgynous, they are morbidly fat or incredibly thin with ribs like spiral staircases. Tulle-skirted girls are wilting in their velvet chairs waiting for the end- they are resigned to the fact that it is probably already written. Stooping drag queens wear their fox furs attached by teeth to tail, grease-paint crowns their regal noses and cupid’s bows.
Tall ladies politely face the wall, small ones run amok under madly darkened eyebrows.
Darkly enchanting, these photographs are touching in their depiction of human frailty and strength. Once the metaphysical rug is whipped out from under your feet, you are forced to come to a conclusion, make your own mistakes and see the funny side. Suddenly, you too are part of the picture, rooted to the spot, wildly gesturing and making peculiar faces. Afterwards you might scratch your head and wonder what just happened, but Sanges is a magician, an unhinged puppet master with a camera. As you step back out into the June afternoon, come rain or shine you may feel you’ve a touch of sunstroke- but it’s only your mind playing tricks on you again.
About the Artist
SANGES is an imaginative and innovative photographer who has exhibited worldwide and published extensively. Clients and art projects include: Agent Provocateur, Cutler & Gross, Vogue, National Opera Munich,Dolce & Gabbana National Opera Stuttgart, Dario Argento, Stash Klossowski de Rola and Gunther Von Hagens’ Body World.
Magazines include: Sunday Telegraph, Silver Shotz, Photo, All About Photos, Musee, Katalog, Lomography, Normal, Elle, Esquire, The Times, Independent, Fault, Aesthetica, Shoot, Harpers Bazar, L’oeil De la Photographie. Wonderland, Minimalism Magasine.
Some of his short films include: Sugar, Meet me in Winter, Circumstances, Music Sound Machine, Sonnambula, Wunderkamera.
His books include: Circumstances, Venus, Wild, and Erotic Photography, Love Lust Desire, Dolce & Gabbana Animal, National Opera Munich, The Cutting Room. Mefistofele Opera Stuttgart by Arrigo Boito.
A multi-disciplinary artist, his film ‘Circumstances’ won Best Art Film at the Portobello Film Festival in London and Best Experimental Film at the Open Cinema Film Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia.
His distinctive photographs have been shown at major contemporary photography festivals including Helsinki Photo Festival and Batumi PhotoDays in Georgia and the Lodz Photofestiwal in Poland.
One of his latest project ‘Wunderkamera’ has been exhibited at the Hospital Club in London and at the Chateau de Dampierre (France) and will be exhibited in the Gallerie de Buci in Paris February 2020.
Marco’s work is in the permanent collecztion of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts USA and one of his piece has been exhibited and auctioned at Christies – London Auction in 2023.
