Arnis Balcus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arnis Balcus (born 1978) is a photography and video artist. Born in Riga, Latvia, Balcus lived and worked in his home town before moving to London, United Kingdom in 2004. He took a MA course on photography at University of Westminster from 2004 to 2005.
Balcus started his career with ambiguous black and white self-portraits that were published in his first book "Desire to be Adored" (1999), when he was just 21 years old. Just after that he obtained snapshot aesthetic to document the moments of intimacy, friendship and everyday life. These photographs formed a number of international solo shows at major European art galleries and museums, for instance, Overgaden, Copenhagen (2003), Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna (2004); State Museum of Art, Riga (2004); Matthew Bown Gallery, London (2005), and led to a success of sold-out book "Myself, Friends, Lovers and Others" (2003). His controversial photographs, for instance, a self-portrait with erected penis, received divided opinions by critics and viewers. His work often was compared to Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans and Tracy Emin.
Balcus work has also been published in various art and lifestyle magazines, such as Black and White Magazine, Dazed & Confused (magazine), Flash Art Magazine, Soul Mag, Achtung Mode and many more.
Balcus addresses issues of identity and gender also in his video works. His most acclaimed and widely shown piece is "Xionel" (2004), which features a confession by a beautiful Asian transsexual. In the most recent work "Episodes" (2006) Balcus uses the aesthetics of cinema and medium of comics to comment the representation of women and men in the history of film. He has released a book "Episodes Vol. I".
