Visual artists Justine Kurland, Alexandra Bell, and Oliver Chanarin, discuss re-writing historical and cultural narratives using techniques of appropriation and intervention in relation to their work on view at ICP in A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload through May 2, 2022.
About the Exhibition
A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload takes a long look at our worries and compulsive fascination with the proliferation of photographic images. In the 1920s, with the rapid increase in illustrated magazines and daily newspapers, commentators asked whether society could survive the visual inundation. Artists looked to mass-media imagery and archives of all kinds to rethink the world around them. The artists of Dada, surrealism, pop, situationism, conceptualism, and postmodernism were all, in different ways, horrified and mesmerized by the seemingly endless supply of images. They cast a critical eye over the clichés, stereotypes, and repetitive images, and looked to unearth alternative histories and counternarratives. From scrapbooks to internet memes, from collage and image appropriation to art made by algorithms, A Trillion Sunsets highlights unlikely parallels and connections across distinct decades.
About the Program Format
All programs will take place on Zoom. Those who register to attend will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link located at the bottom of the email under ‘Important Information.’ The Zoom link can be used to join the programs through a computer or mobile device.
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If you have questions about the virtual lecture or don’t receive the confirmation email, please contact: [email protected].
Speaker Bios
Born in Warsaw, New York, in 1969, Justine Kurland holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in photography from Yale University. She is best known for photographing subjects in American wilderness landscapes, and her strongly narrative work is influenced by nineteenth-century English picturesque landscapes and the utopian ideal as well as genre paintings, the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron and Mathew Brady, and illustrations from fairy tales. Kurland has used staged tableaux to explore the social landscape of girlhood, life on communes, and life in the wilderness. She collaborates with her subjects, who are real people rather than models, in selecting locations and then talks to them about the scenes and scenarios she would like them to respond to and interpret for the camera. Kurland’s photographs are held in museums including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Oliver Chanarin (born 1971, London, UK) is an artist working primarily with photography. He studied Artificial Intelligence as an undergraduate and is professor of photography at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. Chanarin is also a founding member of the masters programme in photography at The Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Netherlands. He is one half of the duo Broomberg & Chanarin, whose work is held in major public and private collections including Pompidou, Tate, MoMA, Yale, Stedelijk, Jumex in Mexico DF, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Eye Amsterdam, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Cleveland Museum of Art and Baltimore Museum of Art. Awards include the ICP Infinity Award (2014) for Holy Bible, and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2013) for War Primer 2; the Arles Photo Text Award (2018).
Alexandra Bell (b. 1983, Chicago, IL) is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates the complexities of narrative, information consumption, and perception. Utilizing various media, she deconstructs language and imagery to explore the tension between marginal experiences and dominant histories. Through investigative research, she considers the ways media frameworks construct memory and inform discursive practices around race, politics, and culture. Her work has been exhibited at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Charlie James Gallery, MoMA PS1, We Buy Gold, Koenig & Clinton Gallery, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Atlanta Contemporary, Pomona College Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art, and Usdan Gallery at Bennington College. She received the 2018 International Center of Photography Infinity Award in the applied category and is a 2018 Soros Equality Fellow. She is a 2020 Sarah Arison Artadia awardee and a 2021 Pioneer Works resident. Bell holds a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies in the humanities from the University of Chicago and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Event Price
This program is free with a suggested donation of $5.