Michael Dweck (American, b.September 26, 1957) is a photographer best known for his photography that uses erotic and suggestive imagery. Though he was born in Brooklyn, NY, he moved to Long Island with his family when he was just three years old. After graduating from the John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, NY, he entered the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, as an Architecture major. The following year, Dweck changed his major to Fine Arts and Communications. He graduated from the school with a BFA in 1979. Three years after graduating, the photographer opened Michael Dweck & Campbell. In 1985, Dweck attended The New School for Social Research where he studied under Marshall Blonsky, a famous semiotician.
The photographer spent much of the 1990s focusing on advertising work; he opened the company Dweck & Campbell in 1992 before changing the name to Dweck! in 1999. He won several awards for his advertising work, including the Gold Lion at the Cannes International Festival, Agency of the Year from the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and the AICP Award for Advertising Excellence.
Though Dweck enjoyed his work in advertising, he closed his business in 2002 to give himself time for photography. His first exhibit came that same year, and he turned that exhibit, The End: Montauk, NY, into a book. During the initial run of the book, it was so popular that the publisher ran out of copies. The following year, Sotheby’s New York ran an exhibit of that work, making it the first time the auction house devoted a show to a living person. One of Dweck’s more famous projects is the series Mermaids, which he started working on in 2006. The series showed female models underwater in mermaid poses. Ditch Plains Press compiled the photographs from the series and released the images as the book Mermaids Collector’s Edition. Dweck’s work has been displayed at the Staley Wise Gallery in New York, NY, the Gallery Orchard in Nagoya, Japan, and the Fototeca de Cuba Museum in Havana, Cuba. Dweck lives and works in New York City and Montauk, NY
Elisaveta 1, New York, New York, 2005, Silver gelatin print, (ed. 30), 40.6 x 50.8 cm
Untitled, (further details unavailable).
Text and images: http://www.artnet.com/artists/michael-dweck/
