Sanctuary by Gregory Crewdson

Abandoned outdoor film sets are the subject for Sanctuary, Gregory Crewdson's latest project. While visiting Rome, American photographer Gregory Crewdson was invited to tour the legendary film studio Cinecitta, where directors such as Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini shot their films. He was fascinated by the elaborate film sets that had became ruins.... Sanctuary is a series of forty-one  haunting black-and-white photographs of crumbling facades and deserted streets, shot at dawn and dusk, at the Cinecitta studios in 2009.

In these pictures, I draw upon the inherent quietness and uncanny aspects of the empty sets. As with much of my work, I looked at the blurred lines between reality and fiction, nature and artifice, and beauty and decay. --Gregory Crewdson

Sanctuary opens September 23, at Gagosian gallery in New York. The book will be released in conjunction with the exhibition.

Images, courtesy the New Yorker