EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY PRESENTS IMAGES WHICH EXPLORE THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Released: January 8, 1999

Cambridge, Massachusetts - The special exhibition Building Representation: Photography and Architecture, Contemporary Interactions will be on display at the Fogg Art Museum from January 23 through April 11, 1998. The exhibition will comprise selected works by contemporary artists who investigate the conceptual and technical foundation of photography in imagery depicting built environments. The artists represented, Lorna Bieber, James Casebere, Stéphane Couturier, Abelardo Morell, Shellburne Thurber, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, simultaneously explore the cultural meaning of the "architecture" of photographic syntax and present images of buildings as the public site of social critique or the hermetic location for the individual contemplation of the ritualized object. Their example stands for a broader trend among contemporary photographers to (re)present architecture as a location for cultural critique and meta-commentary. Building Representation is organized by Deborah Martin Kao, Charles C. Cunningham, Sr., Associate Curator of Photographs, and Kenneth Martin Kao, lecturer in architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. The exhibition is supported with funds from the John M. Rosenfield Teaching Exhibition Fund.

There will be eighteen works in this small, focussed installation. Each artist is represented with two to five photographs. Stéphane Couturier exploits the unique properties of large-format photography to compress architectural space. In his images that depict the archeology of the urban condition, Couturier aims to create "objects of thought" that calculate the medium's dual capability to record artifacts and create artifice. Lorna Bieber, negotiating the slippage between the private and the public realm, chooses prosaic advertising photography from mass-audience magazines as her point of departure. Manipulating these pieces of consumer culture, Bieber invents disquieting photographic murals comprised of colliding environments that evoke film noir. For Shellburne Thurber, the province of domestic architecture-the empty rooms in her late Aunt Anna's house-becomes a site inhabited by memory. Her images contemplate the nearly ubiquitous implementation of photography as a memento mori within the culture.

These artists' explorations of the visual language of architecture also engage the history of photographic technology. The modern camera derives from the earlier camera obscura-literally meaning a dark chamber-a constructed space in which the outside world rendered itself in perspective automatically on a flat wall or plane through the natural magic of the optics of light. In his camera obscura photographs, Abelardo Morell transforms the familiar into the marvelous. Like Alice in Wonderland, the viewer of Morell's work contemplates a world turned inside out and upside down, where outside scenes inhabit private rooms. By photographing his own architectural models, James Casebere creates austere and ambiguous images that hover between the transcendent and the derelict, consciously evoking metaphors of the solitude of the artist's studio and the imagery of the camera obscura. In his theatre series Hiroshi Sugimoto sets his camera as if in the position of the film projector and makes an exposure for the length of the feature film. The cumulative effect of small quantities of light from the projector over a long duration reveals the ornate architecture and yet subverts the narrative of the film. In this manner, Sugimoto invokes the theatre of photographic vision as his essential subject.

RELATED EVENTS

Gallery talks

Gallery talks are free to the public with the price of Art Museums' admission. Admission is free on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings. Hearing assists are available for gallery talks; arrangements should be made beforehand by phoning (617) 495-8286. To request a sign language interpreter, the public should call (617) 495-2397 using Massachusetts Telephone Relay Service 1-800-439-2370, preferably three weeks in advance of the gallery talk.

Saturday, January 23, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
Deborah Martin Kao, Charles C. Cunningham, Sr., Associate Curator of Photographs.

Saturday, February 6, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
Jenna Webster, research assistant, Department of Photographs.

Saturday, February 20, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
Deborah Martin Kao, Charles C. Cunningham, Sr., Associate Curator of Photographs.

Saturday, March 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jenna Webster, research assistant, Department of Photographs.

Saturday, March 20, 2:00 p.m.
Linda Norden, Barbara Lee Associate Curator of Contemporary Art.

Saturday, April 3, 2:00 p.m.
Jenna Webster, research assistant, Department of Photographs.

Seminar Series

Building a Collection: Contemporary Photographs at the Fogg
Deborah Martin Kao, Charles C. Cunningham, Sr., Associate Curator of Photographs
Thursdays, March 11, 18, 25, 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., Agnes Mongan Center, Fogg Art Museum
$100, $75 Friends, advance registration is required, please call (617) 495-4544 to register.

This three-part series will explore the surprisingly long history of and current focus on contemporary photography at the Fogg Art Museum. Although a major strength of the our collection, institutional support for contemporary photography in both the academy and the museum proceeded slowly and unevenly at best. Few universities established academic programs in studio photography or photographic history until the late 1960s and 70s, when serious attention to the medium coincided with the rise of cultural theories in which the seeming veracity of photographs was recast as false documents, constructed realities and subversive texts. The origin of the Fogg's photograph collection corresponds to this shift in the status of photography within the larger culture. Using works of art from the collection, we will examine the over thirty-year history of the Fogg's remarkable collection of contemporary photographs, considering its larger contexts and meanings.

Light Conversation: Seminars with Contemporary Photographers
Mondays, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Agnes Mongan Center, Fogg Art Museum
Free admission, registration not requied, however seating is limited.

These intimate seminars offer the opportunity for a limited audience to interact with contemporary artists, discussing aspects of their work from original objects in the Agnes Mongan Center. Deanne Sokolin creates iconic images using digital technology that investigate issues of Jewish identity and the ritual of commemoration. James Casebere investigates the ambiguous spaces of solitude found in prisons, monasteries, asylums and even homes in the compelling photographs he makes from architectural tableaux he constructs in his studio. A member of the photography faculty at the Carpenter Center, Sage Sohier's recent work includes a challenging documentary series on individuals coping with serious medical interventions.

February 22 Deanne Sokolin
March 22 James Casebere
April 19 Sage Sohier

Associated Exhibitions and Event

Inside/Out: Camera Obscurae by Abelardo Morrell and Ted Victoria
March 8 through March 26, 1999
Lobby Gallery, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge

Salts of Silver, Toned with Gold: An Exhibition of the Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography
March 10 through May 25, 1999
Houghton Library Exhibition Gallery and Widener Library Rotunda Gallery, Harvard University, Harvard Yard

Symposium
March 10, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and March 11, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Carpenter Center for Visual Arts Auditorium, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge Reservations not required. For more information contact the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, The Houghton Library, Harvard University at (617) 495-2444. Participants include Denise Bethel, Merry A. Foresta, Julia van Haaften, Hans P. Kraus, Jr., Anne McCauley, Grant Romer, Martha Sandweiss, Larry J. Schaaf, Robert Sobiezek, John Szarkowsi, Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, and Alan Trachtenberg.

The Harvard University Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible. For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. For press information or photographs, please contact Kate McShea Ewen at (617) 495-2397. For more information on events, please call (617) 495-4544. World Wide Web: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.

The Harvard University Art Museums comprise three museums (Busch-Reisinger Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum), all located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, at the intersection of Quincy Street and Broadway, adjacent to Harvard Yard. The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and to all on Saturday mornings and all day on Wednesdays. For special tour reservations, please call (617) 496-8576. General tours are offered Monday through Friday from September through June; Wednesdays only in July and August. The Fogg tour is at 11:00 a.m.; the Busch-Reisinger tour is at 1:00 p.m.; and the Sackler is at 2:00 p.m. The Harvard University Art Museums is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.