A June Bride

Interesting fact: June is the most popular month for weddings. How many friends and relatives have asked you to stand in as their wedding photographer yet? (Yeah, we hear you.) It may interest you to know how much great art has come out of wedding photography: which is the inspiration behind an exhibit opening tonight at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York (525 West 25th Street, New York, NY; 212.414.0370).

(photo credit right: bulletproofglass #4, 2002 © Rosemary Laing, Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York)

June Bride’s images are a collection of images by such legendary photographers as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Nan Golden, Robert Mapplethorpe, Alec Soth, among many others, all of which examine the bride as a subject. Cultural, style, and tradition all play a role here, as does background and family ties: some takes more of a creative, rather than documentary, approach, as with the photography of Wang Jin’s To Marry a Mule performance piece.
(photo credit left: Untitled (Bride with Bubblegum), 1981
Color photograph © Bill Owens, Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, NY)
  —Lori Fredrickson