Elad Lassry
Untitled (Woman, Blond)
The Guggenheim Museum
1071 5th Ave
New York, NY 10128
November 20th – March 23rd
“Photo-Poetics: An Anthology“, is an exhibition that features more than 70 works by ten artists: Claudia Angelmaier, Erica Baum, Anne Collier, Moyra Davey, Leslie Hewitt, Elad Lassry, Lisa Oppenheim, Erin Shirreff, Kathrin Sonntag, and Sara VanDerBeek. The exhibition will examine an important new development in contemporary photography, offering an opportunity to decipher concerns of a younger generation of artists and to contextualize their work within the crevice of history, art, and visual culture. Drawing on the legacies of Conceptualism, all artists involved in this experience utilize a largely studio-based approach to still-life photography that is centered on the representation of objects, often printed matter such as books, magazines, and record covers. The result; an image imbued with heartfelt personal significance—a sort of displaced self-portraiture—that resonates with larger cultural and historical meanings. Driven by a profound engagement with the medium of photography, these artists become into investigators and inspect the nature, traditions, and magic of photography at the crucial moment were digitization became apart of our everyday lives. Their goal is to re-materialize the photograph through meticulous printing, using film and other disappearing photo technologies, and creating artist’s books, installations, and photo-sculptures. Their investment in exploring the processes, supports, and techniques of photography deepens the interest these artists have in the evolvement of photographic images. There’s a sort of “photo poetics,” an art that self-consciously investigates the laws of photography and nature of photographic representation, reproduction, and the photographic object. The exhibition is organized by Jennifer Blessing, Senior Curator, Photography, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with Susan Thompson, Assistant Curator.
