Exquisite Provocation
Mark McKnight Receives Aperture Portfolio Prize
Mark McKnight received the 2019 Aperture Portfolio prize, which was announced this month. Though he is still relatively young in his career, McKnight’s work makes wise demands of the world–namely, to question the concepts and structures of masculine beauty.
His textural work draws parallels between human bodies and bare earth–pockmarked and rough, gravelly and uneven–then rides that track as far as possible from all things conventional and vanilla.
“Edward Weston once said the camera should be used for recording the ‘quintessence of the thing itself, whether polished steel or palpitating flesh,’” explains Aperture writer Brendan Embser. “For [Mark] McKnight… something was missing from Weston’s vision. Something that would ignite a flame of recognition in a young queer man with ideas about male beauty more expansive than the Eurocentric standard. Something that would make ‘straight’ photography a little less straight.”
McKnight frequently relies on close friends and those whom he knows intimately as subjects in his work. Tangible comfort surrounds the camera on both sides, allowing McKnight to uncover sides of humanity that glossy, filtered, commercial photography would have us find shameful. He is exquisitely provocative, and we look forward to seeing much more from him in the future.
