"l-scape"
Curated by Diego Cortez
September 16 - October 29, 2004
Main Gallery, John Hope Franklin Center
Opening Reception
Thursday, September 16 :: 6:30 - 8:00 PM
l-scape opens the Franklin Center Gallery’s 2004-2005 season. The show is a remarkable exhibition by six of the world’s leading photographers:
Rineke Dijkstra (b. 1959, Netherlands). Dijkstra’s work is known for its play of light and surface. She seems to excise her subjects from their surroundings, underscoring the individual’s sense of autonomy from environment and from audience. Her remarkable images then become a contest between subject (as portrait) and background (as landscape). The work showing is “Tiergarten, Berlin, July 1, 2000.”
William Eggleston (b. 1939, U.S.) In the image selected for this show—“Untitled, ca. 1966-1968” –one has a chance to view an early black and white work by Eggleston, one which contains many of the references that are common to his later color work: the American car, the sense of small town, the blurred line between urban and country, and the hint of the gothic just outside the frame.
Yurie Nagashima (b. 1973, Japan) Nagashima has described her work as being about delusions. In the photograph on display, “Untitled (Kirkland, WA), 1996,” she introduces us to four individuals, each seemingly absorbed in their own landscape. The singular perspectives of the four people remind us, though, that landscape is neither unified nor limited by the print’s two dimensions.
Thomas Ruff (b. 1958, Germany). Ruff is another one of the fascinating young German photographers who studied with Bernd Becher in Düsseldorf. While much of Ruff’s work draws upon the architectural landscapes of the Bechers or the indexical portraits of August Sander, “w.h.s. 07, 2002” is a more whimsical photograph, hinting at Gerhard Richter, in which a building appears about to shimmer into nothingness. The image reminds us that landscapes exist in time.
Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968, Germany). Tillmans’ photography stretches across the gamut of fashion, art and documentary. His work is its own unique history of twentieth-century photography, images seeming to draw on some prior work yet exposing variant interpretations. “Shaker Tree” (1995) suggests that even a foregrounded tree can be a nude portrait.
Hellen van Meene (b. 1963, Netherlands) Van Meene’s work traditionally evolves around the theme of young girls’ maturation. In “Untitled (Japan), 2001” from the series “New Photos Japan,” she explores ways of dissolving the distinction between portrait and landscape. Here the two girls are intimate continuations of the surrounding world/landscape.
All photographs from the Collection of Diego Cortez, New York, except Thomas Ruff, “w.h.s. 07, 2002,” which is from the Collection of Gerald and Sandra Fineberg, Boston.
The Franklin Center gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Mr. Cortez and Mr. and Mrs. Fineberg.
For more information, contact Rob Sikorski, r.sikorski@duke.edu or 919.684.2867