Stavanger, Norway
How do you go on a date with nature? In an untitled series of five black-and-white photographs, Maren Elve tries. The results are something like a romantic comedy, maybe filmed by Truffaut, starring Elve and a balloon, shot on location atop a picturesque grassy mountain. Fortuitously, there is no one and nothing else nearby to encroach on the couple’s rendez-vous. Elve’s hair is loosely pinned up and she is daringly costumed in a jacket and seemingly not much else. Her companion is appropriately heart-shaped, and they hold hands throughout or, rather, strings. The balloon goes up, it goes down, it pulls her here, she pulls it there, and then this viewer wonders: Oh, is she having an affair with the balloon or with the wind? A mountaintop would be the perfect place for such an encounter, a balloon the keenest matchmaker, a lack of clothing helpful for feeling a nice caress. Romanticism here enters a whole new era.
—Lori Waxman, March 18, 1:23 PM