In the Collage II (Marie) (2013), Shorr seems to have an ostensibly clear subject, a female subject identified in the work’s title as “Marie,” a slim but athletic woman with brown hair pictured reclining atop a brilliantly white sheet draped against a marbled tan-and-white backdrop. Although photographed topless, Marie is depicted in slightly contorted poses that emphasize the curves of her figure while also obstructing the viewer’s gaze. Printed on high gloss paper, Marie’s portrait has the polished veneer of magazine spread, and the two portraits on display offer different vantages of the same subject. But Schorr subverts expectations: instead of framing the images flat, Schorr loosely rolls the two prints, displaying them in a clear vitrine mounted on top of a white rectangular pedestal. The display raises questions about modes of spectatorship that objectify female bodies. At the same time, Schorr activates a physicality through these portraits that belies the conventional flatness of photography. By encouraging her audience to examine her vitrine from all sides, Schorr engagers her viewer in a more complex and multi-faced mode of viewership and, by extension, allows her portraits to be seen with a kind of dimensionality closer to real life.
Collier Schorr photographs communities of people, from high school wresters in her native New York to teenagers in the German countryside clad in American military uniforms. Her work displays an almost anthropological curiosity, and in documenting her subjects, she tries to find the idiosyncratic details through which people organize into “tribal” relationships with one another. Her images, by extension, blend photographic realism with elements of fiction and fantasy as a means of representing the various ways these tribes identify themselves. Schoor’s work also investigates gender and the ways in which subjects use visual cues and embodied signs to both inhabit and subvert assumed gender expectations.
The Striation Scrap Lamps (vertical and horizontal) although functioning as utilitarian objects also represent Jason Meadows’s interest in a certain kind of crafted sculpture...
Donald of Doom Tank (2008) is a replica of a vintage metal toy with Donald Duck’s image one side and a soldier on the other...
Titled afterTruman Capote’s protagonist famously played by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Holly Golightly (2011) captures the essence of the character: seductive and bold, mysterious and capricious...
Through a semi-fictional approach, Extrastellar Evaluations envisions a version of history in which alien inhabitants, the Lemurians, lived among humans under the guise of various renowned conceptual and minimal artists in the 1960s (Carl Andre, Mel Bochner, and James Turrell to name a few)...
Collier Schorr’s prints upend conventions of portrait photography by challenging what it means to “document” a subject...
The Striation Scrap Lamps (vertical and horizontal) although functioning as utilitarian objects also represent Jason Meadows’s interest in a certain kind of crafted sculpture...
Donald of Doom Tank (2008) is a replica of a vintage metal toy with Donald Duck’s image one side and a soldier on the other...
Titled afterTruman Capote’s protagonist famously played by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Holly Golightly (2011) captures the essence of the character: seductive and bold, mysterious and capricious...
In the Trenches: Artists Encounter the Los Angeles River, Part 1 – Art and Cake August 30, 2023 August 30, 2023 Author In the Trenches: Artists Encounter the Los Angeles River, Part 1 Michelle Robinson 2023 What Was 4th Street Acylic paint on print 40×60 in By Lawrence Gipe In the mid-1980’s, I lived on Santa Fe Avenue and 7th Street, and the idea of Los Angeles having a “river” was a bit of a joke...
Collier Schorr’s prints upend conventions of portrait photography by challenging what it means to “document” a subject...
Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...
South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....
Thomas’ lenticular text-based works require viewers to shift positions as they view them in order to fully absorb their content...
Why I Make Art - Photographs by Mari Katayama | Essay by Marigold Warner | LensCulture Feature Why I Make Art Mari Katayama reflects on the roots of her intricately staged self-portraits, in which she uses her own body—often surrounded by objects and environments she has created herself—as a lens through which to reflect society...
Drinks at 6pm, Screening at 7pm This filmic portrait of Guy de Cointet , the French-born, California-based artist, compiles interviews with friends and colleagues such as John Baldessari , Larry Bell , Richard Jackson , Morgan Fisher , Paul McCarthy , Robert Wilhite , Christophe Bourseiller , Violeta Sanchez, and Gus Foster ...