UNTITLED

Melanie Pullen “murdered” my girlfriend. It was the summer of 2005, and she cut her throat and left her for dead in a dark alley. Anyone who knows Pullen’s fine-art photography knows I’m referring to “High Fashion Crime Scenes,” her series featuring beautiful, well- dressed women in the most horrific scenes imaginable, including the one with my girlfriend. If those photos worked, it was because Pullen teased out a not so subtle commentary about how the media destroy women in the service of the fashion industry.

Now Pullen’s back with an even more ambitious series, “Violent Times,” at Ace Gallery’s Mid-Wilshire space (Sat.-August; acegallery.net). Again, she’s beautifying malice, only instead of beautiful women, she’s presenting us with beautiful men; and instead of victims, culprits. (Expect life-sized images of male models doing battle in historically accurate uniforms.) But the most interesting difference is, rather than pulling pages from fashion magazines, she’s pulling pages from art history.

“What some people don’t realize is that a lot of Old Masters actually hired models and had them act out battle scenes,” she says. “I’m just doing the same thing.”

--

-- theguide@latimes.com