Category: existence

Exhibition: ‘Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Exhibition dates: 18th October, 2009 – 3rd January, 2010

Co-curators: Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Karen Sinsheimer, the Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968) Triptych from the series 'Seoul New Town' 2005-2007 from the exhibition 'Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Oct 2009 - Jan 2010

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968)
Triptych from the series Seoul New Town (Lights of Weolgok-dong, 2005; Disappearing Lights of Weolgok-dong I, 2006; and Disappearing Lights of Weolgok-dong II, 2007)
2005-2007
Chromogenic photographs
Courtesy of the artist © Ahn Sekwon

 

 

Great to have some really good quality photographs to show you from this exhibition!

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968) 'Lights of Weolgok-dong', 2005 from the exhibition 'Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Oct 2009 - Jan 2010

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968)
Lights of Weolgok-dong
2005
Chromogenic photograph
Courtesy of the artist © Ahn Sekwon

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968) 'Disappearing Lights of Weolgok-dong I', 2006 from the exhibition 'Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Oct 2009 - Jan 2010

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968)
Disappearing Lights of Weolgok-dong I
2006
Chromogenic photograph
Courtesy of the artist © Ahn Sekwon

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968) 'Disappearing Lights of Weolgok-dong II', 2007

 

Sekwon Ahn (Korean, b. 1968)
Disappearing Lights of Weolgok-dong II
2007
Chromogenic photograph
Courtesy of the artist © Ahn Sekwon

 

Dae-Soo Kim (Korean, b. 1955) 'Untitled' from the series 'Bamboo' (1998-2008) 1999

 

Dae-Soo Kim (Korean, b. 1955)
Untitled
1999
From the series Bamboo 1998-2008
Gelatin silver photograph, printed 2007
Santa Barbara Museum of Art; museum purchase with funds provided by PhotoFutures

 

Bien-U Bae (Korean, b. 1950) 'Kyung ju' from the series 'Sonamu' 1985

 

Bien-U Bae (Korean, b. 1950)
Kyung ju
1985
From the series Sonamu
Gelatin silver photograph
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; museum purchase with funds provided by Photo Forum

 

 

This October, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography, the most comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Korean photography to ever be shown in the United States. Organised by Anne Wilkes Tucker, The Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the MFAH, and Karen Sinsheimer, Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Chaotic Harmony features large scale photographs by 40 Korean artists, many of who have never before exhibited in international museum exhibitions and whose work will be on view in the United States for the first time in this show. At the MFAH, the works will be on display in the Audrey Jones Beck Building’s Cameron Foundation Gallery, as well as the Lower Beck Corridor, from October 18, 2009 through January 3, 2010, presenting a fascinating window onto the vital and constantly evolving country, Korea.

“As South Korea has exploded onto the international trade scene, South Korean artists have also emerged onto the global stage, which the recent high auction prices for Korean artwork attest to. Despite this fact, Korean art is still rarely presented in the United States, and the specific field of Korean photography is even less explored here,” said MFAH director Peter C. Marzio. “Following the MFAH’s tradition of presenting pioneering photography exhibitions, we are pleased to exhibit this brilliant survey of contemporary South Korean photography, which can be seen in the enhanced context of Your Bright Future and the museum’s Arts of Korea gallery.”

“Operating under a relatively new democracy in South Korea, artists experienced a burst of creative energy and freedom of expression in recent decades, and an entirely fresh perspective of modern-day Korea is presented in this show,” added curator Anne W. Tucker. “The photographers in ‘Chaotic Harmony’ observe the country’s notable growth in terms of industry and urbanisation and convey the resultant issues as well as reflect on the country’s ancient culture and religions.”

Within the exhibition, two distinct generations of Korean artists are represented: those born in the mid-1950s and 1960s, during a succession of military dictatorships when the country was still largely agrarian, and those born in the 1970s, predominantly in urban areas and who came into maturity in the new democratic era which began in 1987. With two exceptions, one work by each artist is included. Through recent works by both generations of photographers, Chaotic Harmony explores Korea through five thematic sections: land and sea; urbanisation and globalisation; family, friends, and memory; identity: cultural and personal; and anxiety.

Land and Sea

Most of the work represented in the “Land and Sea“ section of the exhibition was created by the first generation of Korean artists who traveled abroad for their graduate educations and brought their new ideas back to dramatically effect photographic styles in Korea. Nevertheless, many of them remained tied to Korean landscapes and traditions while embracing new aesthetic ideas. The extraordinarily beautiful land and seascapes in this section celebrate Korea’s surrounding oceans and the forests that cover large sections of its mountainous terrain. In addition, these photographers often explore religious practices that are primarily tied to nature. BAE Bien-u’s Kyung ju (1985, see photograph above) from the series Sonamu (which translates to “sacred pine grove“), documents mist-shrouded pine trees surrounding Gyeongiu, the ancient city of the Shilla kingdom (A.D. 668-935). KIM Young-sung’s Untitled photograph (2005) from the Dolman series, shows a man standing atop one of Korea’s 50,000 dolmans (or ancient tombs). Over 60 percent of the world’s 80,000 dolmans are located in Korea. Gap-Chul Lee has documented shamanism (as well as Buddhism) in Korea for decades, but most specifically in his series Conflict and Reaction (1990-2001).

Urbanisation and Globalisation

An ancient civilisation, South Korea has recently transformed into one of the world’s major global economies. Three-fourths of the population is categorised as urban, with half living in the country’s six major cities. Seoul is the world’s fourth largest metropolitan area. This section of the exhibition responds to the shift of the population from rural to city living, and the entrance of Korea on to the world stage. Young-Joon CHO’s Usual & Circle – Seoul Namdaemun, Rho Gwang-hyo (2005) is a diptych: the image on the left presents an urban area teeming with stores, advertisements, people, and traffic, while the image on the right isolates a woman who we would not have otherwise noticed in the larger view of the city. Her expression of emotional distress is consistent with all the isolated figures in the series. Ahn Sekwon documented Seoul’s rapid physical changes by photographing one particular neighbourhood of the Weolgok-dong section of Seoul in 2005, 2006, and 2007 as the old homes are destroyed to make room for new high rises. The resulting triptych (see photographs above) dramatically conveys the destruction of the modest-scale homes to make way for the towering scale of a modern city.

Family, Friends, and Memory

“Family, Friends, and Memory“ reflects the tensions in shifting societal values and practices as Korea continues its rapid growth. Traditionally, families followed Confucian norms: the father was the respected head of household and made decisions for his wife and children, financially supporting the family and arranging schooling and marriages. Social values have changed with increasing awareness of Western cultures through travel and the importation of Western products and media. Also with dramatic urban growth, came shifts from homes to crowded high rises, the entrance of women into the workforce, and other changes. Sunmin LEE’s photograph, Lee, Sunja’s House #1 – Ancestral Rites (2004, see below), portrays traditional values playing out in a modern setting: the men and boys of a family conduct traditional rituals in one room while the women watch from the doorway. Sanggil KIM’s Off-line: Burberry Internet Community (2005, see photograph below) depicts a modern phenomenon: people who met over the internet, united by a common passion, in this case, that of wearing Burberry Check (registered as a trademark of the Burberry brand) and enjoying an “off-line” get-together.

Identity: Cultural and Personal

Between 1910 to 1945, Japan annexed Korea and systematically attempted to eradicate Korean culture and identity, for example, by banning Korean literature and language from schools. Only six years after World War II, Korea was devastated by the Korean War. This section of Chaotic Harmony investigates what it means to be Korean today after this disruptive history. Some artists, such as Bohnchang KOO, seek to reclaim past cultural history, by photographing treasured and uniquely Korean items such as Celadon – the main type of ceramic produced in ancient Korea and generally exalted as Korea’s most significant artistic legacy. Jungjin Lee in term photographs native crafts from Korean folk culture. Exploring more personal aspects of identity is Yeondoo JUNG’s Bewitched #2 (below), a diptych juxtaposing images of the same teenager, mopping the floor of a Baskin Robbins in her day job and exploring the Arctic regions in her dream job (see photographs below); and Hyo Jin IN’s Violet #01 from the High School Lovers series (2007, below), which portrays an openly lesbian couple.

Anxiety

The “Anxiety” section of Chaotic Harmony investigates the constant tension provoked by strained relations and the potential of a violent outbreak between North and South Korea. Jung LEE’s Bordering North Korea, #2 (2005), from her 2005-2008 series of the same title, offers a view of North Korea seen from China and them superimposes over it an accompanying text chosen from the set phrases that North Koreans are allowed to say to the few foreigners who gain access to the country, such as Our country is the paradise of the people. She wants the viewer to experience both the beauty of the land and the palpable repression evident in the political slogans. Seung Woo Back references the subliminal fear of an attack from North Korea by staging “invasions” of toy soldiers that march across a family’s yard and up their wall to the kitchen window ledge, presumably unbeknownst to the person whose silhouette is visible though the window.”

Press release from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston website [Online] Cited 11/11/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Yeondoo Jung (Korean, b. 1969) 'Bewitched #2' 2001

 

Yeondoo Jung (Korean, b. 1969)
Bewitched #2
2001

 

Sanggil Kim (Korean, b. 1974) 'Off-line: Burberry internet community' 2005

 

Sanggil Kim (Korean, b. 1974)
Off-line: Burberry internet community
2005
From the series off-line 2005
Chromogenic photograph
Santa Barbara Museum of Art; museum purchase with funds provided by PhotoFutures
© Sanggil Kim

 

JeongMee Yoon (Korea, b. 1965) 'Seo Woo and Her Pink Things' from 'The Pink and Blue Project' 2005-2008

 

JeongMee Yoon (Korean, b. 1965)
Seo Woo and Her Pink Things
From The Pink and Blue Project 2005-2008
© JeongMee Yoon

 

In “Family,” the last section of her essay, Sinsheimer addresses the traditional and changing structures of the Korean family: inter-racial marriage, Confucian traditions, the nuclear family, and the effects of consumerism on the younger generation. Sunmin Lee’s photograph of an ancestral ritual, Lee, Sunja’s House #1 – Ancestral Rites (2004, below), represents the loosening of Confucian practice as the participants wear Western dress. Yet modernisation goes only so far, since the women do not take part in this vestige of patriarchal society.

A pair of photographs from Jeong Mee Yoon’s The Pink & Blue Project (2005-2008, above), created during her studies in New York, shows portraits of children surrounded by their accumulated belongings arranged neatly on the floor. All pink for girls and all blue for boys, the massed items, suggest that a global consumerist culture, rather than national or ethnic values, determine male and female versions of identity and acquisition. As the author observes, these images of children engulfed by material abundance are “a portrait of consumerism.”

Hyewon Yi. “Review of Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography [exhibition catalog],” in Trans-Asia Photography Review Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License

 

PA-YA (Korean, b. 1971) 'Noblesse Children #12' from the series 'Noblesse Children' 2008

 

PA-YA (Korean, b. 1971)
Noblesse Children #12
2008
From the series Noblesse Children 2008
Chromogenic photograph
Santa Barbara Museum of Art; museum purchase with funds provided by PhotoFutures

 

Sunmin Lee (Korean, b. 1968) 'Sunja's House #1 - Ancestral Rites' 2004 from the series 'Woman's House II' 2003-2004

 

Sunmin Lee (Korean, b. 1968)
Lee, Sunja’s House #1 – Ancestral Rites
2004
From the series Woman’s House II 2003-2004
Chromogenic photograph
© Sunmin Lee, courtesy of the artist

 

Sungsoo Koo (Korean, b. 1970) 'Tour Bus' 2005 from the series 'Magical Reality' 2005-2006

 

Sungsoo Koo (Korean, b. 1970)
Tour Bus
2005
From the series Magical Reality 2005-2006
Chromogenic photograph
Courtesy of the artist © Sungsoo Koo

 

Chan-Hyo Bae (Korea, b. 1975) 'Existing in Costume_1' 2006 from the series 'Existing in Costume' 2006

 

Chan-Hyo Bae (Korea, b. 1975)
Existing in Costume_1
2006
From the series Existing in Costume 2006
© Chan-Hyo Bae

 

Chan-Hyo Bae has chosen the iconography of queenliness to express his own feelings of cultural estrangement. Originally from South Korea and currently living in London, England, Bae begins from very simple, common sentiments of foreignness. His works – large-format colour prints, in which he plays unidentified female British monarchs from the 13th to 19th centuries (all his works are untitled) – initially appear to be a cheeky sort of wish fulfilment. One is readily reminded of Yasumasa Morimura, the Japanese artist who casts himself in Western art’s biggest roles, and also, perhaps, of the phenomenon of cosplay – the subculture of dressing up like fictional or historical characters – which originates in Japan but has become popular throughout Asia and the rest of the world. Bae seems to be performing a blatant paradox: that of the outsider gleefully destabilising the hierarchies of a culture about which he has admittedly fantasised, but which has forbade him full entrance because of an unalterable ethnicity.

Text from the photography-now website [Online] Cited 09/05/2019. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Hein-kuhn Oh (Korea, b. 1979) 'So-young Kang, Age 16, 2003' from the series 'Girl's Act' 2001-2005

 

Hein-kuhn Oh (Korean, b. 1979)
So-young Kang, Age 16, 2003
2003
From the series Girl’s Act 2001-2005
© Hein-kuhn Oh

 

Hyo Jin In (Korea, b. 1975) 'Violet #02' from the series 'High School Lovers' (2007)

 

Hyo Jin In (Korean, b. 1975)
Violet #02
2007
From the series High School Lovers (2007)
© Hyo Jin In, courtesy Sarah Lee Artworks & Projects

 

Bohnchang Koo (Korea, b. 1953) 'In the Beginning I' 1991

 

Bohnchang Koo (Korea, b. 1953)
In the Beginning, I
1991
Gelatin silver print with thread on paper
53 x 37 1/2 inches (135 x 95cm)
© Bohnchang Koo

 

 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Avenue of the Arts
465 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts

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Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

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Review: ‘Heavenly Vaults’ by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond

Exhibition dates: 7th – 28th November, 2009

Curator: the artist

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Nave, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France' 2006/07 from the exhibition 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Nov 2009

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Nave, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France
2006/2007

 

 

I remember many years ago, in the mid-1990’s, seeing the wonderful Domes of David Stephenson displayed in Flinders Lane in what is now fortfivedownstairs gallery. They were a revelation in this light filled space, row upon row of luminous domes seemingly lit from within, filled with the sense of the presence of divinity. On the opposite wall of the gallery were row upon row of photographs of Italian graves depicting the ceramic photographic markers of Italian dead – markers of the impermanence of life. The doubled death (the representation of identity on the grave, the momento mori of the photograph) slipped quietly into the earth while opposite the domes ascended into heaven through their numinous elevation. The contrast was sublime.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the latest exhibition Heavenly Vaults by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond.

The problems start with the installation of the exhibition.

As you walk into the gallery the 26 Cibachrome photographs are divided symmetrically down the axis of the gallery so that the prints reflect each other at both ends and each side of the gallery. It is like walking down the nave of a cathedral and observing the architectural restraint of the stained glass windows without their illumination. Instead of the punctum of light flooding through the stained glass windows, the varying of intensities, the equanimity of the square prints all exactly the same size, all reflecting the position of the other makes for a pedestrian installation. Some varying of the print size and placement would have added much life and movement to a static ensemble.

Another element that needed work was the prints themselves which, with a few notable exceptions, seemed remarkably dull and lifeless (unlike their digital reproductions which, paradoxically, seem to have more life!). They fail to adequately represent the aspirations of the vaults as they soar effortlessly overhead transposing the earthbound into the heaven-sent.

In the earlier work on the domes (which can be found in the book Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture) the symmetry of the mandala-like domes with their light-filled inner illumination worked well with the square format of the images making the photographs stand as equivalents for something else, other ineffable states of being.

“The power of the equivalent, so far as the expressive-creative photographer is concerned, lies in the fact that he can convey and evoke feelings about things and situations and events which for some reason or other are not or can not be photographed. The secret, the catch and the power lies in being able to use the forms and shapes of objects in front of the camera for their expressive-evocative qualities. Or to say this in another way, in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer’s expressive purposes. He may wish to employ the recording power of the medium, it is strong in photography, and document. Or he may wish to emphasize its transforming power, which is equally strong, and cause the subject to stand for something else too.”1

As Minor White further observes,

“When the image mirrors the man
And the man mirrors the subject
Something might take over”2


When the distance between object and image and image and viewer collapses then something else may be revealed: Spirit.

In this exhibition some of the singular images such as the Crossings, Choirs and Nave of the Church of Santa Maria, Hieronymite Monastery, Belém, Portugal (see photograph below) work best to achieve this revelation. They transcend the groundedness of the earthly plane through their inner ethereal light using a reductive colour palette and strong highlight/shadow detail.

Conversely the diptychs and triptychs of Nave and Choir (see photographs below and above) fail to impress. The singular prints pinned to the gallery wall are joined together to form pairs and trios but in this process the ‘space between’ the prints (mainly white photographic paper), the breathing space between two or more photographs that balances their disparate elements, the distance that Minor White calls ‘ice / fire’, does not work. There is no tension, no crackle, no visual crossover of the arches and vaults, spandrels and flutes. Here it is dead space that drags all down with it.

I found myself observing without engagement, looking without wonder or feeling – never a good sign!

The photographs of Domes and Vaults have served David Stephenson well for numerous years but the concept has become tired, the inspiration in need of refreshment through other avenues of exploration – both physical and spiritual.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

1/ White, Minor. “Equivalence: The Perennial Trend,” in PSA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 7, pp. 17-21, 1963 [Online] Cited 08/05/2019

2/ White, Minor. “Three Canons,” from Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations. Viking Press, 1969


Many thankx to Daniel and John Buckley Gallery for allowing me to reproduce the photographs from the exhibition. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Choir, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France' 2006/07 from the exhibition 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Nov 2009

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Choir, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France
2006/2007

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'St. Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England' 2006/07 from the exhibition 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Nov 2009

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
St. Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England
2006/2007

 

Installation view of 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond

 

Installation view of Heavenly Vaults by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Nave, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic' 2008/09

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America 1955)
Nave, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
2008/2009

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Choir, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic' 2008/09

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America 1955)
Choir, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
2008/2009

 

 

“While the subject of my photographs has shifted… my art has remained essentially spiritual – furthermore than two decades I have been exploring a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence.”


David Stephenson

 

 

Internationally renowned photographer David Stephenson has dedicated his practice to capturing the sublime in nature and architecture. Fresh from a successful exhibition at Julie Saul Gallery in New York, Stephenson returns to John Buckley Gallery for his third highly anticipated exhibition Heavenly Vaults. The exhibition will feature 26 selected prints from his latest monograph published by Princeton Architectural Press; Heavenly Vaults: From Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture. Shaun Lakin, Director of the Monash Gallery of Art, will launch the book and exhibition at the opening, November 7th.

Stephenson began to photograph Gothic vaults in Spain and Portugal in 2003, while completing the work for his Domes project, and his first monograph Visions of Heaven: the Dome in European Architecture. He began to focus on the Vaults project in 2006, photographing Gothic churches and cathedrals in England, Belgium and France. With the assistance of an Australia Council Artist Fellowship in 2008-2009, Stephenson completed extensive fieldwork for the Vaults project, intensively photographing Romanesque and Gothic architecture in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany. The exhibition at John Buckley Gallery coincides with the launch of his second monograph, Heavenly Vaults: from Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture, published by Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

Even though the traditional systems the underpinned church architecture have lost their unequivocal power, David Stephenson’s photographs capture the resonance of those times. More importantly his work also suggest that the feelings of aspiration, transcendence, and infinity these buildings evoke in the viewer have an ongoing relevance beyond the religious setting and help us understand who and what we are.

Excerpt from Foreword, Heavenly Vaults, by Dr Isobel Crombie 2009


David Stephenson’s new book of photography is a love letter to the intricate, seemingly sui generis vaults of Europe’s Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and churches.

Press release from the John Buckley website [Online] Cited 11/11/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Nave, Church of Santa Maria, Hieronymite Monastery, Belém, Portugal' 2008/09

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Nave, Church of Santa Maria, Hieronymite Monastery, Belém, Portugal
2008/2009

 

 

‘While the subject of my photographs has shifted from the landscapes of the American Southwest and Tasmania, and the minimal horizons of the Southern Ocean, and the icy wastes of Antarctica, to sacred architecture and the sky at both day and night, my art has remained essentially spiritual – for more than two decades I have been exploring a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence.’

David Stephenson 1998.1

 

With poetic symmetry the Domes series considers analogous ideas. It is a body of work which has been ongoing since 1993 and now numbers several hundred images of domes in countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, England, Germany and Russia. The typological character of the series reveals the shifting history in architectural design, geometry and space across cultures and time, demonstrating how humankind has continually sought meaning by building ornate structures which reference a sacred realm.2 Stephenson photographs the oculus – the eye in the centre of each cupola. Regardless of religion, time or place, this entry to the heavens – each with unique architectural and decorative surround – is presented as an immaculate and enduring image. Placed together, the photographs impart the infinite variations of a single obsession, while also charting the passage of history, and time immemorial.

1. Van Wyk, S. 1998. “Sublime space: photographs by David Stephenson 1989-1998,” National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne np
2. Hammond, V. 2005. “The dome in European architecture,” in Stephenson, D. 2005, Visions of heaven: the dome in European architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York p. 190

© Art Gallery of New South Wales Photography Collection Handbook, 2007

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Choir, King's College Chapel, Cambridge, England' 2006/07

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Choir, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, England
2006/2007

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Crossing, York Minster, York, England' 2006/07

 

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Crossing, York Minster, York, England
2006/2007

 

 

John Buckley Gallery

This gallery is now closed.

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Review: ‘Unforced Intimacies’ by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne

“Piccinini’s exhibition (paradoxically entitled “Unforced Intimacies”) is an act of revelatio: the pulling aside of the genetic curtain to see what lies beneath.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 22nd October – 21st November 2009

Curator: the artist

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)' 2009 from the exhibition 'Unforced Intimacies' by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Canadian Mountain Goat

 

 

We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! – yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. – A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. – One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! – For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

 

When human imagination takes flight, as it does in this exhibition, the results are superlative.

Piccinini is at the height of her powers as an artist, in full control of the conceptual ideas, their presentation and the effect that they have on the viewer. Witty, funny, thought-provoking and at times a little scary Piccinini’s exhibition (paradoxically entitled Unforced Intimacies) is an act of revelatio: the pulling aside of the genetic curtain to see what lies beneath.

Featuring hyperrealist genetically modified creatures and human child figures Piccinini’s sculptures, drawings and video seem passionately alive in their verisimilitude (unlike Ricky Swallow’s resplendently dead relics at the NGV). In The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat), the title perhaps a play on the traditional Zen koan The Sound of One Hand Clapping, a meditation on the nature of inner compassion, a walrus-child balances on one hand on the back of a Canadian Mountain Goat. The walrus-child has extended eyes, a voluminous lower lip with whiskers under the nose; the hyperreality of the hand on the back of the goat makes it seem like the hand will come alive! A mane of hair flows down the walrus-child’s back to feet that are conjoined – like an articulated merman – ending not in flippers but in toes complete with dirty, cracked and broken nails. Here the natural athleticism of the mountain goat, now dead and stuffed, is surmounted by the mutated walrus-child’s natural athleticism, poignantly suspended like an exclamation mark above the in-animate pommel horse.

In Balasana (The Child’s Pose) a child reposes in the yoga position on a tribal rug. Balanced on top of the child is a stuffed Red-necked Wallaby that perfectly inverts the concave of the child’s back, it’s front feet curled over while it’s rear feet are splayed. The luminosity of the skin of the child is incredible – such a technical feat to achieve this realism – that you are drawn to intimately examine the child’s face and hands. The purpose of The Child’s Pose in yoga is that it literally reminds us of our time as an infant and revives in us rather vivid memories of lying in this position. It also reminds us to cultivate our inner innocence so that we in turn may see the world without judgement or criticism. The paradoxes of the ‘unforced’ intimacy between the child and the wallaby can be read with this conceptualisation ‘in mind’.

With The Bottom Feeder (2009) Piccinini’s imagination soars to new heights. With the shoulders of a human, the legs and forearms of what seems like a marsupial, the lowered head of a newt with intense staring blue eye (see photograph above), luminescent freckled skin covered in hair and a rear end that consists of both male and female genitalia that forms a ‘face’, the hermaphroditic bottom feeder is a frighteningly surreal visage. Inevitably the viewer is drawn to the exposed rump through a seemingly unforced interactivity, examining the folds and flaps of the labia and the hanging scrotum of this succulent feeder. Here Piccinini draws on psychoanalysis and Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage in a child’s development – where the child wants to merge with the mother to erase the self / other split by fulfilling the mother’s desire by having sex with her – thus erasing the mother’s lack, the idea of lack represented by the lack of a penis.1

As Jean Baudrillard notes of the mass of bodies on Brazil’s Copacabana beach, “Thousands of bodies everywhere. In fact, just one body, a single immense ramified mass of flesh, all sexes merged. A single, shameless expanded human polyp, a single organism, in which all collude like the sperm in seminal fluid … The sexual act is permanent, but not in the sense of Nordic eroticism: it is the epidermal promiscuity, the confusion of bodies, lips, buttocks, hips – a single fractal entity disseminated beneath the membrane of the sun.”2

An so it is here, all sexes merged within the anthropomorphised body of The Bottom Feeder, a body that challenges and subverts human perceptions of the form and sexuality of animals (including ourselves) that inhabit the world.

In Doubting Thomas (2008), my favourite piece in the exhibition, a skeptical child with pale and luminous skin is about to put his hand inside the mouth of a genetically modified mole like creature that has reared it’s hairy snout to reveal a luscious, fluid-filled mouth replete with suckers and teeth. You want to shout ‘No, don’t go there!’ as the child’s absent mother has probably already warned him – to no avail. Children only learn through experience, I suspect in this case a nasty one.


The terrains the Piccinini interrogates (nature and artifice, biogenetics, cloning, stem cell research, consumer culture) are a rematerialisation of the actual world through morphological ‘mapping’ onto the genomes of the future. Morphogenetic fields3 seem to surround the work with an intense aura; surrounded by this aura the animals and children become more spiritual in their silence.

Experiencing this new world promotes an evolution in the way in which we conceive the future possibilities of life on this earth, this brave but mutably surreal new world.

This is truly one of the best exhibitions of the year in Melbourne.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

1/ Klages, M. Jacques Lacan. Boulder: University of Colorado, 2001 [Online] Cited 09/10/2009 no longer available online

2/ Baudrillard, Jean. Fragments: Cool Memories III, 1990-1995. London: Verso, 1997, p. 74

3/ “A morphogenetic field is a group of cells able to respond to discrete, localised biochemical signals leading to the development of specific morphological structures or organs.” Morphogenetic field definition on Wikipedia [Online] Cited 05/05/2019


Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)' 2009 from the exhibition 'Unforced Intimacies' by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Canadian Mountain Goat

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)' 2009 (detail) from the exhibition 'Unforced Intimacies' by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat) (detail)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Canadian Mountain Goat

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Bottom Feeder' 2009

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Bottom Feeder' 2009

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Bottom Feeder
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, steel, fox fur

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Bottom Feeder' 2009 (detail)

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Bottom Feeder (detail)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, steel, fox fur

 

Exploring concepts of what is “natural” in the digital age, Patricia Piccinini brings a deeply personal perspective to her work.

Rachel Kent notes: “Since the early 1990s, Piccinini has pursued an interest in the human form and its potential for manipulation and enhancement through bio-technical intervention. From the mapping of the human genome to the growth of human tissue and organs from stem cells, Piccinini’s art charts a terrain in which scientific progress and ethical questions are intertwined.”

Text from the Tolarno Galleries website [Online] Cited 05/05/2019. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Doubting Thomas' 2008

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Doubting Thomas
2008
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, chair

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Doubting Thomas' 2008 (detail)

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Doubting Thomas (detail)
2008

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Doubting Thomas' 2008 (detail)

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Doubting Thomas' 2008 (detail)

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Doubting Thomas (detail)
2008

 

 

“Time and again my work returns to children, and their ambiguous relationships with the (only just) imaginary animals that I create. Children embody a number of the key issues in my work. Obviously they directly express the idea of genetics – both natural and artificial – but beyond that they also imply the responsibilities that a creator has to their creations. The innocence and vulnerability of children is powerfully emotive and evokes empathy – their presence softens the hardness of some of the more difficult ideas, but it can also elevate the anxiety level.”


Patricia Piccinini quoted on the Kaldor Public Art Projects website [Online] Cited 05/11/2009. No longer available online

 

“I am interested in the way that contemporary biotechnology and even philosophy erode the traditional boundaries between the artificial and the natural, as well as between species and even the basic distinctions between animal and human.”


Patricia Piccinini quoted in Sarah Hetherington. “Patricia Piccinini: Related Individuals,” on the Artlink website [Online] Cited 05/05/2019. No longer available online

 

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Balasana' 2009 (detail)

 

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Balasana
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Red-necked Wallaby, rug
2009

 

 

Tolarno Galleries
Level 4, 104 Exhibition Street,
Melbourne, Vic, 3000
Phone: +61 3 9654 6000

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm
Saturday 1 – 5pm

Tolarno Galleries website

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Exhibition: ‘Thomas Demand in Berlin’ at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Exhibition dates: 18th September, 2009 – 17th January, 2010

Curator: Udo Kittelmann, director of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2008-2020)

 

Thomas Demand. 'Diving Board' (Sprungturm)1994 from the exhibition 'Thomas Demand in Berlin' at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Diving Board (Sprungturm)
1994
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

 

“It’s not about the real place,” Demand has said. “It’s much more about what we have seen as the real place.”

All photographs in the posting appear in the exhibition.

A review of the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition can be found on the 5B4: Photographs and Books blog.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Neue Nationalgalerie for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Brennerautobahn' 1994 from the exhibition 'Thomas Demand in Berlin' at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Brennerautobahn
1994
C-Print/ Diasec
150 x 118cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Tavern IV' 2006 Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Brennerautobahn' 1994 from the exhibition 'Thomas Demand in Berlin' at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Klause IV / Tavern IV
2006
C-Print / Diasec
103 x 68cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Bathroom' 1997

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Badezimmer / Bathroom
1997
C-Print / Diasec
160 x 122cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Treppenhaus / Staircase' 1995

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Treppenhaus / Staircase
1995
C-Print/ Diasec
150 x 118cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

 

The Nationalgalerie presents Thomas Demand’s show National Gallery Berlin. From September 18, 2009, the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin devotes a comprehensive solo show to one of the internationally most influential artists of our time: Thomas Demand. It is so far the largest presentation of his work in this country. However, the exhibition National Gallery is not designed as an overall retrospective but it is firmly dedicated to only one subject, which is perhaps the most important in Demand’s multi-facetted oeuvre: Germany.

Living in Berlin since 1996 Thomas Demand is an artist known for his large-format photographs, which explore the blank domain between reality and the ways it is being represented. He is undoubtedly regarded as one of the most renowned artists of his generation. Using paper and cardboard he builds three-dimensional, usually life-size models of places which often make references to pictures found in the mass media. By taking photographs of the scenery created in this way, he produces artefacts of a kind of their own which play with the beholder’s ideas of fiction and reality.

Until January, 17, 2010, about 40 works by the artist will be on display in the glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie built by Mies van der Rohe. There is hardly a location which is more suitable to convey to the beholder the panorama of a nation’s history than the large glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie, which is not only regarded as an incunabulum of post-war architecture but also as a symbol for the self-image of the Federal Republic of Germany at the former border between East and West. The exceptional exhibition architecture of the firm, Caruso St. John, London, forms an ideal link between Demand’s works and Mies van der Rohe’s bright hall.

Each picture shown in the exhibition is accompanied by a specific caption written by Botho Strauß which does not so much explain or define Demand’s work but rather creates a space between the pictures and the texts to allow new versions of interpretation.

Text from the New National Gallery website [Online] Cited 01/11/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Copyshop' 1999

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Copyshop
1999
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Drafting Room' 1996

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Drafting Room
1996
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Laboratory (77-E-217)' 2000

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Laboratory (77-E-217)
2000
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Haltestelle' 2009

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Haltestelle
2009
C-Print / Diasec, 240 x 330 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

 

List of works that appear in the exhibition:

Archiv / Archive, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 183,5 x 233cm
Attempt, 2005, C-Print/ Diasec, 166 x 190cm
Badezimmer / Bathroom, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 160 x 122cm
Balkone / Balconies, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 128cm
Brennerautobahn, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118cm
Büro / Office, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 240cm
Campingtisch / Camping Table, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 85 x 58cm
Copyshop, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 300cm
Drei Garagen / Three Garages, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 108 x 223cm
Fabrik (ohne Namen), 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 120 x 185cm
Fassade / Facade, 2004, C-Print/ Diasec, 178 x 250cm
Fenster / Window, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 286cm
Fotoecke, 2009, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 198cm
Gangway, 2001, C-Print/ Diasec, 225 x 180cm
Grube / Pit, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 229 x 167cm
Haltestelle, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 240 x 330cm
Heldenorgel, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 240 x 380cm
Hinterhaus, 2005, C-Print/ framed, 26.9 x 21.5cm
Kabine, 2002, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 254cm
Kinderzimmer /Nursery, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 140 x 230cm
Klause 1 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 275 x 170cm
Klause 2 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 178 x 244cm
Klause 3 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 199 x 258cm
Klause 4 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 103 x 68cm
Klause 5 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 197 x 137cm
Labor (77-E-217), 2000, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 268cm
Lichtung / Clearing, 2003, C-Print/ Diasec, 192 x 495cm
Modell / Model, 2000, C-Print/ Diasec, 164,5 x 210cm
Paneel / Peg Board, 1996, C-Print/ Diasec, 160 x 121cm
Parlament / Parliament, 2009, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 223cm
Raum / Room, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 270cm
Sprungturm / Diving Board, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118cm
Spüle / Sink, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 52 x 56.5cm
Studio, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 349.5cm
Rasen / Lawn, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 122 x 170cm
Terrasse / Terrace, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 268cm
Treppenhaus / Staircase, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118cm
Wand /Mural, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 270cm
Zeichensaal / Drafting Room, 1996, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 285cm

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Sink' 1997

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Sink
1997
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Tavern 3' 2006

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Tavern 3
2006
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Demand’s work is based on pre-existing images from the media, often of sites of political or cultural interest. He translates these images into life-size models using paper and cardboard, and photographs the resulting tableaux. These five photographs [of which the above is just one] depict a tavern in the German village of Burbach where a young boy was kidnapped, held hostage and ultimately murdered in 2001. His body was never recovered. The case was covered extensively in the German press, and images of the tavern became imbued with the public’s horrified imagination of the crime. Demand’s photographs investigate the traces these mediated images leave in the collective memory.

Tate Gallery label, April 2008

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Archive' 1995

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Archive
1995
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Lawn' 1998

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Lawn
1998
C-Print / Diasec
122 x 170cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Office' 1995

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Büro / Office
1995
C-Print / Diasec
183.5 x 240cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Gangway' 2001

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Gangway
2001
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Attempt' 2005

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Attempt
2005
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Balconies' 1997

 

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Balconies
1997
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

 

 

Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785
Berlin
Kulturforum-Potsdamer Platz

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
Closed Mondays

Neue Nationalgalerie website

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Exhibition: ‘A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet’ at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Exhibition dates: 25th September, 2009 – 3rd January, 2010

Co-curators: Elisabeth Sussman (Whitney Curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography) and Tina Kukielski (Senior Curatorial Assistant)

 

David Wojnarowicz (American, 1954-1992) 'Untitled' 1988 from the exhibition 'A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet' at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 2009 - January 2010

 

David Wojnarowicz (American, 1954-1992)
Untitled
1988
Synthetic polymer on two chromogenic prints
11 x 13 1/4 in. (27.9 x 33.7cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase with funds from the Photography Committee
Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY

 

 

I gently massaged more photographs of the work in the exhibition from the Whitney press office after initially only being able to download one press image! Many thankx to the Whitney for supplying more images.

As the press release mentions them by name, presumably there will be some of the Robert Frank contact sheets which you can see at the posting Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans and the water towers of Bernd and Hilla Becher two photographs of which can be seen at the posting Notes on a conversation with Mari Funaki.

In case you don’t know the work of artist David Wojnarowicz he was a gay man who died of HIV/AIDS aged 37 in 1992: I believe he was one of the most talented and subversive artists of his generation and his powerful images of identity, sexuality, power and death remain seared in my memory.

Unfortunately there are not many good images to be found online but there is an excellent Aperture book, Aperture 137 Fall 1994 (David Wojnarowicz: Brush Fires in the Social Landscape) available from Amazon.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. For more Wojnarowicz art work please see the posting on the exhibition David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, July – September, 2018


Many thankx to the Whitney Museum of American Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs in the posting for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Rachel Harrison (American, b. 1966) 'Contact Sheet (should home windows...)' 1996 from the exhibition 'A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet' at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 2009 - January 2010

 

Rachel Harrison (American, b. 1966)
Contact Sheet (should home windows…)
1996
Chromogenic print on fibreboard
20 x 16 in.
Collection of the artist 
courtesy Greene Naftali, New York
© 2009 Rachel Harrison

 

 

In this selection of works drawn principally from the Whitney’s permanent collection, the repetitive image of the proof sheet is the leitmotif in a variety of works spanning the range of the museum’s photography collection, including the works of Paul McCarthy, Robert Frank, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol. The exhibition is co-curated by Elisabeth Sussman, Whitney Curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, and Tina Kukielski, Senior Curatorial Assistant. A Few Frames opens on September 25, 2009 in the Sondra Gilman Gallery and runs through January 3, 2010.

Decisions about which photograph to exhibit or print are frequently the end result of an editing process in which the artist views all of the exposures he or she has made on a contact sheet – a photographic proof showing strips or series of film negatives – and then selects individual frames to print or enlarge. Repetition, seriality, and sequencing – inherited from the contact sheet – are evident in all of the works on view. As co-curator Tina Kukielski notes, “this presentation includes a variety of photographs that build on the formal, thematic, and technical logic of the editing process.”

The exhibition includes photo-based works from sixteen featured artists in the Whitney’s collection. The work of David Wojnarowicz and Paul McCarthy present the contact sheet as a work of art, while those of artists such as Andy Warhol, Harold Edgerton, and Robert Frank play with its repeating forms. Other works call to mind the format of the contact sheet, such as Bernd and Hilla Becher’s typological study of industrial water towers and Silvia Kolbowski’s grid of appropriated images of female fashion models.

Works by contemporary artists such as Rachel Harrison and Collier Schorr in their continued interest in the contact sheet, despite perhaps growing trends toward digital photography, reveal the residual and sustained effects of this process.

Press release from the Whitney Museum of American Art website [Online] Cited 01/11/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963) 'Day Dream (Sky)' 2007

 

Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
Day Dream (Sky)
2007
Collage
48 x 43 in. (121.9 x 109.2cm)
Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) 'Untitled (Cyclist)' 
c. 1976

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Untitled (Cyclist)
c. 1976
Four gelatin silver prints stitched with thread
27 3/8 x 21 5/8 in. (69.5 x 54.9cm) overall
Unique Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and purchase with funds from the Photography Committee
© 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965) 'Bouffant Pride' 2003

 

Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965)
Bouffant Pride
2003
Layered photogravure, cut-outs, collage, acrylic, plasticine, and toy eyes
Overall: 13 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 3/16 in. (34.3 x 26.7 x 0.5cm)
Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (34.3 x 26.7cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Print Committee

 

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) 'Things are Queer' 1973

 

Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026)
Things are Queer
1973
Nine silver gelatin prints
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of David Kezur

 

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937) '[A Few Palm Trees Contact Sheet]' 1971

 

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937)
[A Few Palm Trees Contact Sheet]
1971
Gelatin silver print, tracing paper and crayon
Sheet: 10 x 8 1/16 in. (25.4 x 20.5cm)
Overall (overlay): 9 3/4 x 8 3/16 in. (24.8 x 20.8cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase, with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft
© Ed Ruscha

 

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937) '[A Few Palm Trees Contact Sheet]' 1971

 

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937)
[A Few Palm Trees Contact Sheet]
1971
Gelatin silver print, tracing paper and crayon
Sheet: 10 x 8 1/16 in. (25.4 x 20.5cm)
Overall (overlay): 9 3/4 x 8 3/16 in. (24.8 x 20.8cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase, with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft
© Ed Ruscha

 

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937) 'Mock Up #19 (South West Corner of Graciosa Drive and Beachwood Drive)' 1971

 

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937)
Mock Up #19 (South West Corner of Graciosa Drive and Beachwood Drive)
1971
Gelatin silver print, tracing paper, pigment, pencil, and ink on board,
Image: 7 x 5 in. (17.8 x 12.7cm)
Overall (overlay): 8 1/8 x 5 1/2 in. (20.6 x 14cm)
Mount (board): 11 x 8 in. (27.9 x 20.3cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase, with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft
© Ed Ruscha

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Mabou Winter Footage' 1977

 

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Mabou Winter Footage
1977
Gelatin silver print
23 11/16 x 14 3/4″ (60.1 x 37.5cm)

 

 

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
General Information: (212) 570-3600

Opening Hours:
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Friday and Saturday 10.30am – 10pm
Closed Tuesday

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Review: ‘Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters’ by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne

“Möller’s recombinants are as deadly as they are beautiful. I really liked these creatures narcoleptic shadow dances.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 20th October – 14th November, 2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Rabinova' 2009 from the exhibition 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Rabinova
2009
Oil on linen
82 x 76cm

 

 

“I am interested in this border between the real and the imagined, the constructed and the natural.”


Vera Möller quoted in “Artist earns her stripes” on The Age newspaper website May 28, 2005 [Online] Cited 23/06/2022

 

 

There is a lot of mutability floating around current exhibitions in Melbourne at the moment. At the National Gallery of Victoria we have the deathly, eloquent freeze frame mutability of Ricky Swallow; at Tolarno Galleries we have the genetic hyper-realist mutability of Patricia Piccinini; and at Sophie Gannon Gallery we have the surreal, spatial mutability of Vera Möller.

In this exhibition the real meets the imagined and the constructed encounters the natural in delicate sculptures and beautiful paintings. Coral snake and mutated striped hydras float above Phillip Huntersque backgrounds, looking oh so innocent until one remembers that hydras are predatory animals: the stripes, like the strips of a prisoners uniform not so innocent after all.

These ‘portraits’ (for that is what they strike me as) emerge from the recesses of the subconscious, rising up like some absurd alien fish from the deep. The sculptural forests of mutated specimens waft on the breeze of the ocean current. This detritus of biotechnology, living in the dark and the shadow, emerges into the light and space of the gallery – genetic recombinations in which a strands of genetic material are broken and then joined to another DNA molecule. In Möller’s work this chromosomal crossover has led to offspring (called ‘recombinants’) that dance to a surrealist tune: genetic algorithms that use mutation to maintain genetic diversity from one generation of chromosomes to the next.1

Spatially there is a lightness of touch and a beauty to their representation that brings the work alive within the gallery space. However, Möller’s recombinants are as deadly as they are beautiful. I really liked these creatures’ narcoleptic shadow dances.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

1/ Definition of mutation (genetic algorithm) in Wikipedia.


Many thankx to Sophie Gannon Gallery for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Martinette' 2009 (installation view)

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Martinette (installation view)
2009
Modelling material, acrylic and enamel paint, MDF, perspex cove

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Veronium' 2007 from the exhibition 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Veronium
2007
Oil on canvas
167 x 199cm

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Shapinette' 2009 from the exhibition 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Shapinette
2009
Oil on linen
101 x 101cm

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Telenium' 2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Telenium
2009
Oil on linen
165 x 135cm

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Rubella' 2008-2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Rubella
2008-2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Bureniana' 2008 (installation view)

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Bureniana (installation view)
2008
Modelling material, acrylic and enamel paint, MDF, perspex cover
60 x 61 x 61cm

 

Installation photo of 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Moller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

Installation photo of 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Moller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

 

Installation photographs of Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Interested in the boundaries between the real and the imagined, Vera Möller creates paintings and sculptures by placing fictional hybrid plants in existing terrains. Bright colours and patterns, coral-like and succulent-plant forms and toadstool shapes describe her depictions of dreamt-up specimens that evoke the natural world. Möller’s ‘fantasy specimens’ demonstrate the way in which her science background and art practice have steadily converged.

After training as a biologist in Germany, Möller migrated to Australia in 1986. She later completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts and a PhD at Monash University. Her work has been exhibited in the USA, Japan, Finland, France, Germany and the UK, as well as throughout Australia.

Text from the Sophie Gannon Gallery website [Online] Cited 03/05/2019. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Benthinium' 2008-2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Benthinium
2008-2009
Oil on linen
140 x 220cm

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Tokyana' 2009

 

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Tokyana
2009
Oil on linen
137 x 107cm

 

 

Sophie Gannon Gallery
2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

Sophie Gannon Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005’ at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia

Exhibition dates: 12th September – 8th November, 2009

Curator and organiser: The Aperture Foundation

 

Many thankx to the Morris Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Green Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama' 1997 from the exhibition 'William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005' at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, Sept - Nov, 2009

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Green Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama
1997
Dye coupler print

 

 

Widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of colour photography, William Christenberry has used this expressive medium to explore the American South for forty years. While pursuing this artistic quest he has drawn inspiration from Walker Evans, and influenced a generation of emerging photographers. William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005 surveys his poetic documentation of southern vernacular architecture, signage, and landscape using a wide range of cameras, from his earliest Brownie photographs of the early 1960s to his later work with a large-format camera. Combining never-before-seen photographs, both old and new, with images that are now iconic, this exhibition comprises fifty vintage photographic works and one sculpture. Together, they convey the breadth of his singular photographic vision. Discuss the artistic objectives of his long-term interpretation of the Southern landscape with Michelle Norris of National Public Radio, Christenberry explained: “What I really feel very strongly about, and I hope reflects in all aspects of my work, is the human touch, the humanness of things, the positive and sometimes the negative and sometimes the sad.”

Text from the Morris Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 15/10/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'House and Car, near Akron, Alabama' 1981 from the exhibition 'William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005' at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, Sept - Nov, 2009

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
House and Car, near Akron, Alabama
1981

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Kudzu with Storm Cloud, near Akron, Alabama' 1981

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Kudzu with Storm Cloud, near Akron, Alabama
1981

 

 

“William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005, a phenomenal retrospective exhibition of Christenberry’s photographs, opens to the public at the Morris Museum of Art on September 16, 2009. The Morris Museum is the only Georgia venue hosting this exhibition.

“‘William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005’ is an overview of the career of one of the South’s most important living artists,” said Kevin Grogan, director of the Morris Museum of Art. “Organised by the Aperture Foundation, this exhibition brings to Augusta a body of work like no other. No one has so scrupulously and attentively captured a sense of place and time in quite the way that Bill Christenberry has. He is a remarkable artist, as is proven by this extraordinary body of work. He is America’s Proust.”

Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has plumbed the regional identity of the American South, focusing his attention primarily on his childhood home, Hale County, Alabama. Widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of colour photography, Christenberry draws inspiration from the work of Walker Evans, while paralleling the work of such international practitioners as Bernd and Hilla Becher. Ranging from his earliest Brownie photographs to his later work with a large-format camera, William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005 is a survey of the artist’s poetic documentation of the Southern landscape and vernacular architecture that surrounded him as he grew up. The exhibition, coupling never-before-seen photographs with images that are now iconic, reveals how the history, the very story of place, is at the heart of Christenberry’s ongoing project. While the focus of his work is the American South, it touches on universal themes related to family, culture, nature, spirituality, memory, and ageing. Christenberry photographs real things in the real world – ramshackle buildings, weathered commercial signs, lonely back roads, rusted-out cars, whitewashed churches, decorated graves. Dutifully returning to photograph the same locations annually – the green barn, the palmist building, the Bar-B-Q Inn, among others – he has fulfilled a personal ritual and documented the physical changes wrought by every single year. Straddling past and present, Christenberry’s art suggests the gravity and power of the passage of time.

The exhibition is accompanied by a stunning monograph entitled William Christenberry, published by Aperture in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The book, a comprehensive survey, presents all aspects of the artist’s oeuvre as he intended it to be viewed and considered. More than half the work reproduced has not been previously published.”

Text from the press release on the Morris Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 15/10/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Sprott Church in Alabama' 1971

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Sprott Church in Alabama
1971

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'T.B. Hick's Store, Newbern, Alabama' 1976 from the exhibition 'William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005' at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, Sept - Nov, 2009

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
T.B. Hick’s Store, Newbern, Alabama
1976

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Farmhouse, Hale County, Alabama' 1977

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Farmhouse, Hale County, Alabama
1977

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'House and Car, near Akron, Alabama' 1978

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
House and Car, near Akron, Alabama
1978

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Palmist Building, Havanna, Alabama' 1980

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Palmist Building, Havanna, Alabama
1980

 

The Palmist Building is one of the most iconic structures in Christenberry’s extensive body of work. When he was a child, the clapboard building was a general store operated by his great uncle, but it was later home to a palm reader. The inverted hand-painted sign that covers a broken window initially enticed him to photograph the building in 1961. His earliest photographs pinpoint the sign itself and the peeling whitewash around it. As he became more engrossed in the project, Christenberry carefully examined the relationship of the building to its surroundings, particularly the chinaberry tree that eventually engulfed it.

Text from the High Museum of Art website

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Rabbit Pen, near Moundville, Alabama' 1998

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Rabbit Pen, near Moundville, Alabama
1998

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Old House, near Akron, Alabama' 1964

 

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Old House, near Akron, Alabama
1964

 

 

Morris Museum of Art
1 Tenth Street
Augusta, Georgia 30901
Phone: 706-724-7501

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Sunday: 12 – 5.00pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays

Morris Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘The Abstracted Landscape’ at the Laurence Miller Gallery, New York

Exhibition dates: 24th September – 14th November, 2009

Exhibition artists: Peter Bialobrzeski, Stephane Couturier, DoDo Jin Ming, Toshio Shibata

 

Many thankx to Laurence Miller Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, b. 1955) 'Behind My Eyes 2nd Movement, Plate I' 2002 from the exhibition 'The Abstracted Landscape' at the Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, Sept - Nov, 2009

 

DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, b. 1955)
Behind My Eyes 2nd Movement, Plate I
2002

 

DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, b. 1955) 'Behind My Eyes 2nd Movement, Plate VIII' 2003 from the exhibition 'The Abstracted Landscape' at the Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, Sept - Nov, 2009

 

DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, b. 1955)
Behind My Eyes 2nd Movement, Plate VIII
2003

 

DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, b. 1955) 'Free Element, Plate XXX' 2002

 

DoDo Jin Ming (Chinese, b. 1955)
Free Element, Plate XXX
2002

 

Stéphane Couturier (French, b. 1957) 'Olympic Parkway No. 1' 2001 from the exhibition 'The Abstracted Landscape' at the Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, Sept - Nov, 2009

 

Stéphane Couturier (French, b. 1957)
Olympic Parkway No. 1
2001

 

Stéphane Couturier (French, b. 1957) 'Proctor Valley No. 1' 2004

 

Stéphane Couturier (French, b. 1957)
Proctor Valley No. 1
2004

 

 

Laurence Miller is pleased to present, as its opening show for the fall, The Abstracted Landscape, featuring the work of four midcareer international artists: Peter Bialobrzeski, from Hamburg; Stephane Couturier, from Paris; DoDo Jin Ming from Beijing and New York; and Toshio Shibata, from Tokyo.

These four photographers each translate the landscape into a poetic and abstract vision, utilising techniques and processes unique to photography to create scenes that remain sufficiently recognisable yet unobtainable through the naked eye. Peter Bialobrzeski, in his series Lost in Transition, photographs rapid urbanisation and industrialisation by taking very long exposures, which create otherworldly colours and lighting not visible to the naked eye. Stéphane Couturier embraces the camera’s monocularity in his series from Havana to flatten our normal reading of space and render totally ambiguous the walls of a decaying interior. DoDo Jin Ming, in her series Behind My Eyes, applies the technique of negative printing to render mysterious and foreboding fields of sunflowers. And Toshio Shibata wields his large view camera, with multiple tilts and swings, to look straight down the side of a dam, creating a vertigo-inducing viewpoint we would be unable (and perhaps unwilling) to see directly with our own eyes.

Abstraction in the landscape has a rich tradition within the history of photography. Felix Teynard’s Egyptian views from the mid-1850’s are wonderfully abstract, as are those of J.B. Greene and August Salzmann. Timothy O’Sullivan, Carlton Watkins and William Henry Jackson each made views of the American West from the 1806’s through the 1880s, that were equally rich in detail and minimal in composition. In the 20th century there are many examples, from George Seeley to Paul Strand, through Moholy Nagy and the Bauhaus to Edward Weston’s glorious sand dunes.

Text from the Laurence Miller Gallery website [Online] Cited 12/10/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Toshio Shibata (Japanese, b. 1949) 'Kashima Town, Fukushima Prefecture' 1990

 

Toshio Shibata (Japanese, b. 1949)
Kashima Town, Fukushima Prefecture
1990

 

Toshio Shibata (Japanese, b. 1949) 'Grand Coulee Dam, Douglas County, WA' 1996

 

Toshio Shibata (Japanese, b. 1949)
Grand Coulee Dam, Douglas County, WA
1996

 

Peter Bialobrzeski (German, b. 1961) 'Transition # 33' 2005

 

Peter Bialobrzeski (German, b. 1961)
Transition #33 from the series Lost in Transition
2005

 

Peter Bialobrzeski (German, b. 1961) 'Transition # 20' 2005

 

Peter Bialobrzeski (German, b. 1961)
Transition #20 from the series Lost in Transition
2005

 

Peter Bialobrzeski (German, b. 1961) 'Transition #23' 2005

 

Peter Bialobrzeski (German, b. 1961)
Transition #23 from the series Lost in Transition
2005

 

 

Laurence Miller Gallery

Laurence Miller Gallery is now operating as a private dealer and consultant.

Laurence Millery Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Proud Flesh’ by Sally Mann at Gagosian Gallery, New York

Exhibition dates: 15th September – 31st October, 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Memory's Truth' 2008 from the exhibition 'Proud Flesh' by Sally Mann at Gagosian Gallery, New York, Sept - Oct, 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Memory’s Truth
2008
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

 

“I can think of numberless males, from Bonnard to Callahan, who have photographed their lovers and spouses, but I am having trouble finding parallel examples among my sister photographers. The act of looking appraisingly at a man, making eye contact on the street, asking to photograph him, studying his body, has always been a brazen venture for a woman, though, for a man, these acts are commonplace, even expected.”


Sally Mann

 

 

Many thankx to Gagosian Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on some of the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Proud Flesh is for me an emotionally exhausting work about withering. It has elements of 19th century clinical photography done with absolute loving care for the subject. Its factual surface is quickly replaced by metaphor and the haze of imperfection from the wet-plate collodion negatives she employs. In a few of the images, due to the choice of striped bedding on which the figure lays, we might be looking at a historical photograph take from Auschwitz or Bergen Belsen. With Larry’s thin and seemingly weak legs dangling over the edge of a wooden cot, the soiled bedding following the contour of his legs, it is difficult for me to see this image without this harsh historical reference. The following image in the book, he is turned into a martyr – arms out stretched – the sheet underneath him now sharply crinkled like a bed of straw (or an imagined crown of thorns).

The surface texture plays such a strong role in these photos much of the seduction of these photos comes from the beauty of those imperfections. At times they can be nauseating, for their liquid streaks ooze over the images of aged flesh keeping viscera and bodily fluids as a second metaphoric subject. On the cover image, the disturbed collodion emulsion leaves a pattern which seems to be both looking at, and looking inside, the torso standing before the camera. Like Lee Friedlander’s shadow self-portrait (see the cover of Like a One-eyed Cat) where his organs are replaced with a jumble of rocks and his head is filled with straw, Mann’s image turns Larry’s insides into a mix of man and machine – collodion cogs and gears. This is the most wishful, as it portrays the strongest sense of life and the perhaps even the possibility of escaping its mortality. He stands at table’s edge with a steadying hand and a closed fist.

The most remarkable image for me appears as plate 20 and is captioned Time and the Bell (2008). Like the aforementioned cover image, this is an ideal as Mann has turned her husband’s head and shoulders into a profile bust of marble – the washed out light tones give way to a few angular shapes of rich shadow. It could be a still life of artefacts from an artists work space, a table and a sculptural work in progress. The surprise of the photographic description, which is present in most of the photos in Proud Flesh, is so complex and engaging for me it is difficult to not have it outshine all of the rest.

Text from 5B4: Photography and Books blog October 1, 2009 [Online] Cited 28/04/2019. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Semaphore' 2003 from the exhibition 'Proud Flesh' by Sally Mann at Gagosian Gallery, New York, Sept - Oct, 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Semaphore
2003
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Hephaestus' 2008 from the exhibition 'Proud Flesh' by Sally Mann at Gagosian Gallery, New York, Sept - Oct, 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Hephaestus
2008
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

Sally Mann’s poignant image of her husband, Larry, symbolises both his illness and his skill as a blacksmith.

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'The Nature of Loneliness' 2008

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
The Nature of Loneliness
2008
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative
15 x 13 1/2 inches

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Somnambulist' 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Somnambulist
2009
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

 

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Proud Flesh”, a series of new photographs by Sally Mann.

Children, landscape, lovers – these iconic subjects are as common to the photographic lexicon as light itself. But Mann’s take on them, rendered through processes both traditional and esoteric, is anything but common. From the outset of her career she has consistently challenged the viewer, rendering everyday experiences at once sublime and deeply disquieting.

In previous projects, Mann has explored the relationships between parent and child, brother and sister, human and nature, site and history. Her latest photographic study of her husband Larry Mann, taken over six years, has resulted in a series of candid nude studies of a mature male body that neither objectifies nor celebrates the focus of its gaze. Rather it suggests a profoundly trusting relationship between woman and man, artist and model that has produced a full range of impressions – erotic, brutally frank, disarmingly tender, and more. While the relation of artist and model is, traditionally, a male-dominated field that has yielded countless appraisals of the female body and psyche, Mann reverses the role by turning the camera on her husband during some of his most vulnerable moments.

Mann’s technical methods and process further emphasise the emotional and temporal aspects of these fragile life studies. The images are contact prints made from wet-plate collodion negatives, produced by coating a sheet of glass with ether-based collodion and submerging it in silver nitrate. Mann exploits the surface aberrations that can result from the unpredictability of the process to produce painterly photographs marked by stark contrasts of light and dark, with areas that resemble scar tissue. In works such as Hephaestus and Ponder Heart, the scratches and marks incurred in the production process become inseparable from the physical reality of Larry’s body.”

Text from the Gagosian Gallery website [Online] Cited 10/10/2009. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Kingfisher's Wing' 2007

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Kingfisher’s Wing
2007
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'The Quality of the Affection' 2006

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
The Quality of the Affection
2006
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Ponder Heart' 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Ponder Heart
2009
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Was Ever Love' 2009

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Was Ever Love
2009
Gelatin silver print
Contact print from a wet-plate collodion negative

 

 

Gagosian Gallery – Madison Avenue Gallery
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075
Phone: 212.744.2313

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 6pm

Gagosian Gallery website

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