John Coplans in Sitter
at the Columbus College of Art & Design
January 23—April 23, 2015
Dawoud Bey John Coplans Doug Ischar Hrair Sarkissian Doug Biggert Rineke Dijkstra Natile Krick Celia Shapiro Matthew Brandt Craig Doty Leigh Ledare Daniel Shea Mike Brodie Gustavo Germano Ausencias Catherine Opie Anna Shteynshleyge Robert Buck Nan Goldin Suzanne Opton Arne Svenson Kelli Connell Katie Grannan JR Brian Ulrich Nina Katchadourian Philip-Lorca diCorcia Michael Wolf
Sitter will explore the fecund manifestations of the idea of the “portrait” as it exists in contemporary photography.
From John Coplans’ mapping of the entropic landscape of his own aging body to Katy Grannan’s spontaneous collaborations with strangers met on the streets of San Francisco to Rineke Dijkstra’s deep stares into the awkwardness of formative adolescent identity to Matthew Brandt’s linking of process, the body and self, Sitterwill present a wide range of “portraits” each expanding the idea of what the portrait can be. Sitter brings together conceptual artists, whose practices address an underlying sociopolitical agenda as well as artists and social documentarians that utilize strategies to subjectively shape the portraits they create. The convergence of these approaches yields work that carefully balances aesthetics, political ideas and the essence of identity to frame important social issues in a contemporary manner.
While issues of identity are certainly addressed—whether national, sexual, racial or political—there are also bodies of work that delve into the idea of place and its role in shaping the lives of the individuals that have chosen to live there. The exhibition will also investigate ideas of the public and the private and the interior and exterior lives of the people, groups and places the artists have chosen to encapsulate in their work while still confronting the uneasy prospect of anonymity and the presumption that a portrait allows us to know each subject.
From John Coplans’ mapping of the entropic landscape of his own aging body to Katy Grannan’s spontaneous collaborations with strangers met on the streets of San Francisco to Rineke Dijkstra’s deep stares into the awkwardness of formative adolescent identity to Matthew Brandt’s linking of process, the body and self, Sitterwill present a wide range of “portraits” each expanding the idea of what the portrait can be. Sitter brings together conceptual artists, whose practices address an underlying sociopolitical agenda as well as artists and social documentarians that utilize strategies to subjectively shape the portraits they create. The convergence of these approaches yields work that carefully balances aesthetics, political ideas and the essence of identity to frame important social issues in a contemporary manner.
While issues of identity are certainly addressed—whether national, sexual, racial or political—there are also bodies of work that delve into the idea of place and its role in shaping the lives of the individuals that have chosen to live there. The exhibition will also investigate ideas of the public and the private and the interior and exterior lives of the people, groups and places the artists have chosen to encapsulate in their work while still confronting the uneasy prospect of anonymity and the presumption that a portrait allows us to know each subject.
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