Philip-Lorca diCorcia
27 Feb - 28 Mar 2009
PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA
"Thousand"
February 27 – March 28, 2009
David Zwirner is pleased to present Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Titled Thousand, the show consists of an extraordinary installation of 1,000 of the artist’s Polaroid photographs.
In late 2007, steidldangin published Thousand, a book containing actual-size reproductions of diCorcia’s 1,000 Polaroids, edited down from a collection of 4,000 spanning close to twenty-five years. In 2008, the Polaroids were installed for the first time at an exhibition of the artist’s work held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
One of the most influential photographers working today, diCorcia is known for creating images that balance precariously between documentary and staged photography, fact and fiction. Cumulatively, these 1,000 Polaroids, which are considered one complete work, offer a distinctive vantage point into the artist’s sensibility and visual preoccupations. At David Zwirner, the Polaroids are displayed at eye-level on a long thin aluminum railing attached to the gallery’s main walls, continuing into additional interior, spiral-like spaces built for this installation. The sequencing of the images reveals a deeply personal associative logic and artistic narrative that encapsulates the barrage of information and experiences encountered over the course of a lifetime.
Seen alongside Polaroids from some of diCorcia’s most recognized bodies of work and distinctive series – Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, Lucky Thirteen – are intimate scenes with friends, family members, and lovers; self portraits; double-exposures; test shots from commercial and fashion shoots; the ordinary places of everyday life, such as airport lounges, street corners, bedrooms; and still life portraits of common objects, including clocks and lamps.
In his early works in the late-1970s and 1980s, diCorcia captured his friends and family in domestic tableaux, making his images from the subject matter of his life. In the 1990s, he turned to the great American tradition of street photography epitomized by Walker Evans, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank, and others. Made between 1990 and 1992 in Los Angeles, Hustlers features male prostitutes in motel rooms, sitting in bus stops, and hanging out on street corners. Streetwork, an ambitious international project done in the 1990s, captures anonymous and seemingly detached city people and the proverbial man in the street, while illuminating the unconscious choreography and infinite events that occur in daily urban life. This unique visual travelogue covers New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Naples, Hong Kong, Tokyo, among other cities. For Heads, all shot in New York in 2000 and 2001, diCorcia used a long-lens camera and a remotely triggered flash to zoom in on people’s faces. Set against black backgrounds, the individuals seem to be illuminated by divine light and emerge as random archetypes of a contemporary city. The next project, A Storybook Life, is a non-chronological compilation of seventy-six photographs taken over twenty years. Originally conceived as a book, which was published in 2003, the work was later presented as an installation. From 2003 to 2005, he made the series Lucky Thirteen, where strip-club pole dancers appear alone on a sterile, yet theatrical stage, rarely upright and usually suspended upside down or simply hanging onto the pole.
Philip Lorca diCorcia (born 1951, Hartford, Connecticut) studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 1979. A grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, he received early acknowledgement of his contribution to photography in 1993 with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His work was later exhibited in the 1997 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the 54th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2004), among numerous other group shows. His most recent monographic exhibitions were held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California (2008) and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston,
Massachusetts (2007).
His work is in the collections of many major museums, including Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Tate Britain, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Since the mid 1980s, his photographs regularly have appeared in W, The New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveller, Vogue, among other magazines. His books include Philip-Lorca diCorcia (1993), Streetwork (1998), Heads (2001), A Storybook Life (2003), and Thousand (2007). In 2001 he won the Infinity Award for Applied Photography from the International Center of Photography in New York.
The artist lives and works in New York and currently teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
"Thousand"
February 27 – March 28, 2009
David Zwirner is pleased to present Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Titled Thousand, the show consists of an extraordinary installation of 1,000 of the artist’s Polaroid photographs.
In late 2007, steidldangin published Thousand, a book containing actual-size reproductions of diCorcia’s 1,000 Polaroids, edited down from a collection of 4,000 spanning close to twenty-five years. In 2008, the Polaroids were installed for the first time at an exhibition of the artist’s work held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
One of the most influential photographers working today, diCorcia is known for creating images that balance precariously between documentary and staged photography, fact and fiction. Cumulatively, these 1,000 Polaroids, which are considered one complete work, offer a distinctive vantage point into the artist’s sensibility and visual preoccupations. At David Zwirner, the Polaroids are displayed at eye-level on a long thin aluminum railing attached to the gallery’s main walls, continuing into additional interior, spiral-like spaces built for this installation. The sequencing of the images reveals a deeply personal associative logic and artistic narrative that encapsulates the barrage of information and experiences encountered over the course of a lifetime.
Seen alongside Polaroids from some of diCorcia’s most recognized bodies of work and distinctive series – Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, Lucky Thirteen – are intimate scenes with friends, family members, and lovers; self portraits; double-exposures; test shots from commercial and fashion shoots; the ordinary places of everyday life, such as airport lounges, street corners, bedrooms; and still life portraits of common objects, including clocks and lamps.
In his early works in the late-1970s and 1980s, diCorcia captured his friends and family in domestic tableaux, making his images from the subject matter of his life. In the 1990s, he turned to the great American tradition of street photography epitomized by Walker Evans, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank, and others. Made between 1990 and 1992 in Los Angeles, Hustlers features male prostitutes in motel rooms, sitting in bus stops, and hanging out on street corners. Streetwork, an ambitious international project done in the 1990s, captures anonymous and seemingly detached city people and the proverbial man in the street, while illuminating the unconscious choreography and infinite events that occur in daily urban life. This unique visual travelogue covers New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Naples, Hong Kong, Tokyo, among other cities. For Heads, all shot in New York in 2000 and 2001, diCorcia used a long-lens camera and a remotely triggered flash to zoom in on people’s faces. Set against black backgrounds, the individuals seem to be illuminated by divine light and emerge as random archetypes of a contemporary city. The next project, A Storybook Life, is a non-chronological compilation of seventy-six photographs taken over twenty years. Originally conceived as a book, which was published in 2003, the work was later presented as an installation. From 2003 to 2005, he made the series Lucky Thirteen, where strip-club pole dancers appear alone on a sterile, yet theatrical stage, rarely upright and usually suspended upside down or simply hanging onto the pole.
Philip Lorca diCorcia (born 1951, Hartford, Connecticut) studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 1979. A grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, he received early acknowledgement of his contribution to photography in 1993 with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His work was later exhibited in the 1997 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the 54th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2004), among numerous other group shows. His most recent monographic exhibitions were held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California (2008) and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston,
Massachusetts (2007).
His work is in the collections of many major museums, including Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Tate Britain, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Since the mid 1980s, his photographs regularly have appeared in W, The New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveller, Vogue, among other magazines. His books include Philip-Lorca diCorcia (1993), Streetwork (1998), Heads (2001), A Storybook Life (2003), and Thousand (2007). In 2001 he won the Infinity Award for Applied Photography from the International Center of Photography in New York.
The artist lives and works in New York and currently teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.