Dubai Hot Tub
Artist
Larry Sultan
(American, 1946–2009)
Date2005; printed 2021
Mediumarchival pigment print on Dibond
Dimensions76.2 × 101.6 cm (30 × 40 in.)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Markingson verso: estate stamp
Credit LineSarah C. Garver Fund
Object number2022.4
Label TextDubai Hot Tub is one of Sultan’s most complex examples of relational confusion. Here, as in many of his best-known photographs, viewers struggle to understand how his models connect to each other, the camera, and themselves. Staged in a strange desert hotel room, the photograph incorporates several figures representing incongruent identities in terms of class, religion, race, and gender. The subjects appear to look in different directions; however, the mirror at right confirms that the wealthy seated woman stares directly at an equally forceful woman in a black khimar head covering. Together, they represent two contrasting examples of women in the United Arab Emirates, one of unapologetic extravagance and the other of religious piety.On View
Not on view
