Leigh Ledare
08 Sep - 02 Dec 2012
© Leigh Ledare
Personal Commissions, 2008
C-print.
Courtesy the artist, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London and Office Baroque, Antwerp
Personal Commissions, 2008
C-print.
Courtesy the artist, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London and Office Baroque, Antwerp
LEIGH LEDARE
Leigh Ledare, et al.
Curated by Elena Filipovic
8 September - 2 December 2012
Leigh Ledare, et al. is the first institutional solo exhibition of American artist Leigh Ledare, and comprises over 100 pieces, including examples from nearly all his photographic series to date, as well as video works, text-based pieces, and several newly produced pieces never shown before.
Leigh Ledare (born 1976, Seattle, USA) uses photography, archival material and text to explore human agency, social relationships, taboos and the photographic in equal turns. Formally trained in photography, he has, in a relatively short time, developed a body of work that is coherent, complex, biting in its intelligence and, decidedly provocative. His most subversive series of photographs to date are of his aging mother, who offers herself with disarming explicitness to her son's camera and to the unknown public that might see the resulting images. This foundational series for the artist provides a key for understanding much of Ledare's practice, in which transgression is, also, a cipher for a larger reflection on the workings of photography itself. A more recent series is comprised of collages of memorabilia, found images, and photographs of the artist's ex-wife taken both by Ledare himself, and by his ex-wife's new husband, each picturing their shared subject in sometimes tender, sometimes graphic poses. Emphasizing the central role that others - mother, family members, ex-lover, collectors, anonymous patrons, etc. - play in his work, and the slippage of authorship and agency that he often deliberately gives them, the artist has entitled his fi rst institutional solo exhibition Leigh Ledare, et al. It includes examples from nearly all his photographic series to date, as well as video works, text-based pieces, and a number of newly produced pieces never shown before.
Leigh Ledare, et al.
Curated by Elena Filipovic
8 September - 2 December 2012
Leigh Ledare, et al. is the first institutional solo exhibition of American artist Leigh Ledare, and comprises over 100 pieces, including examples from nearly all his photographic series to date, as well as video works, text-based pieces, and several newly produced pieces never shown before.
Leigh Ledare (born 1976, Seattle, USA) uses photography, archival material and text to explore human agency, social relationships, taboos and the photographic in equal turns. Formally trained in photography, he has, in a relatively short time, developed a body of work that is coherent, complex, biting in its intelligence and, decidedly provocative. His most subversive series of photographs to date are of his aging mother, who offers herself with disarming explicitness to her son's camera and to the unknown public that might see the resulting images. This foundational series for the artist provides a key for understanding much of Ledare's practice, in which transgression is, also, a cipher for a larger reflection on the workings of photography itself. A more recent series is comprised of collages of memorabilia, found images, and photographs of the artist's ex-wife taken both by Ledare himself, and by his ex-wife's new husband, each picturing their shared subject in sometimes tender, sometimes graphic poses. Emphasizing the central role that others - mother, family members, ex-lover, collectors, anonymous patrons, etc. - play in his work, and the slippage of authorship and agency that he often deliberately gives them, the artist has entitled his fi rst institutional solo exhibition Leigh Ledare, et al. It includes examples from nearly all his photographic series to date, as well as video works, text-based pieces, and a number of newly produced pieces never shown before.