ExhibitionS

Constructed Spaces: Contemporary Color Photography

December 4, 2010 – February 13, 2011

In the 1970s, a group of influential photographers from Düssel­dorf, Germany made large-scale black and white images of relatively mundane, industrial archetypes that influenced an emerging group of artists. Constructed Spaces is an updated, variation on that concept with a focus mostly on American artists who modified the approach for a broad look at our environment. Edward Burtynsky, William Egg­leston, Doug Hall, Isaac Julien, Robert Rauschenberg and others are among those whose work frames our surroundings.

In Charlotte Cotton’s text The Photograph as Contemporary Art, the author divides this emerging field into numerous categories. Among them is “Deadpan” an approach to photography where our surroundings are captured without embellishment, drama, or romance. The pioneer for such a style in color photography is often seen as William Eggleston. His work formed the first exhibition of color photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Here, in his untitled photograph taken at Memphis’ Graceland, one can see that this portrait within a portrait hardly conveys the vast richness viewers come to expect from the overwrought environment of Graceland. In a sense, the snapshot’s crisp rendering is without embellishment.

Another example of this is Burtynsky’s Chittagong imagery. The diptych and the large-scale work invite the viewer to consider the global consequences of the industrial impact on the natural environment and its inhabitants. Perhaps ironically, the images’ power is derived from the lens’ faraway reach and the remoteness of the subject.

Along with the work of Eggleston and Burtynsky, many of the remaining artists including Julie Blackmon present scenes that vacillate between mere existence and a staged presentation. As the viewers will see, the distinction between the two is often ambiguous. In the case of J.F. Rauzier, however, his surreal imagery including Winter in Versailles is composed of numerous images painstakingly reassembled on a computer and carefully printed out in nearly overwhelming scale.

Constructed Spaces is a chance to see the manner in which contemporary photography freezes the reality of our existence in some instances and embellishes it in others. Taken as a whole, the show is meant to demonstrate the range of contemporary, color imagery.

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