Trevor Paglen’s work combines the knowledge-base of artist, geographer and activist. He is primarily concerned with “learning how to see the historical moment we live in and developing the means to imagine alternative futures.” Through unique processes like long distance photography, and conducting research like an investigative journalist, Paglen has presented artworks that live at the very edge of the known and the possible, in the zone of facts-stranger-than-fiction. He’s contributed research and cinematography to the Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour , and created a radioactive public sculpture for the exclusion zone in Fukushima, Japan. He is the author of five books and numerous articles on subjects ranging from experimental geography to military symbology, from the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program to machine-made images.
Data mining is a computer software process that can involve the neutral or benign analyzing of internet data for patterns, however, it can also imply the more sinister activities of surveillance or subject-based information gathering...
A photograph of a tin box full of marijuana simply titled Green Box, speaks to the constantly changing status of the substance–once taboo or illicit, now a symbol of a growing industry in Northern California...
Tania Libre is a film by Lynn Hershman Leeson centered around renowned artist Tania Bruguera and her experience as a political artist and activist under the repressive government of her native Cuba...
In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...
Untitled (City Limits) is a series of five black-and-white photographs of road signs, specifically the signs demarcating city limits of several small towns in California...
Fashion is the focus of Blood Sugar , which consists of a video projected onto a vintage vinyl jacket set at torso height on a dressmaker’s dummy...
Untitled is a black-and-white photograph of a wave just before it breaks as seen from the distance of an overlook...
Carland’s series of large-format photographs Lesbian Beds (2002) depicts beds that have been recently vacated...
Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience...
In One Must , an image of a pair of scissors, accompanied by the words of work’s title, poses an ominous question about the relationship between the image and the text...
Sweet Jesus is a sound installation by Lutz Bacher that consists of a found recording of James Earl Jones’ iconic voice reciting biblical genealogy from Matthew, Book 1...
Glenn Ligon’s diptych, Condition Repor t is comprised of two side-by-side prints...
I Am Cuba— “Soy Cuba” in Spanish; “Ya Kuba” in Russian—is a Soviet/Cuban film produced in 1964 by director Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm...
Bruce Conner is best known for his experimental films, but throughout his career he also worked with pen, ink, and paper to create drawings ranging from psychedelic patterns to repetitious inkblot compositions...
The voids in Baldessari’s painted photographs are simultaneously positive and negative spaces, both additive and subtractive...
In 1977, as an already-established artist best known for his films, Bruce Conner began to photograph punk rock shows at Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco club and music venue...