Thursday, December 08, 2005
Darren Almond: 50 Moons At A Time
Darren Almond: 50 Moons At A Time is the title of an exhibition at K21, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen. Almond, a 2005 Turner Prize Nominee, presents his photographic work, which examines physical locations that were the inspirations for various paintings by 19th century romantics, such as Caspar David Friedrich, William Henry Fox Talbot, and John Constable. He is interested in the history and mythology of a place and how that history politicizes our experience of it. The photographs in this exhibition span 3 continents, and Almond has just finished work on a project in Siberia, about a railway bridge in a region dominated by sub-zero temperatures for 11 months out of the year. The most surprising thing about Almond's work is that moment of recognition, when you realize what the photo documents. Human progress has impacted only some of these locations, so they still remain highly recognizable, or at the very least, there remains a sense of somehow knowing the place despite having never seen it. Almond explains this work best:
"This body of work began seven years ago, by chance, with a photograph the duration of whose exposure coincided with the length of a kiss. That shot, Fifteen Minute Moon, sat in my studio for a long time. The brilliance of the moonlight and the colour-change of the landscape compelled me, as did the fact that it had all been made possible by increasing the length of exposure. The ensuing photographs ... were all taken on full-moon nights after darkness had fallen on landscapes I had already seen, and exposed by varying lengths of moonlight ... the landscape is completely in shadow and the camera removes that shadow." Darren Almond
A conversation with Julian Heynen is included in a back pocket in the book. 112 Pgs., 67 Color Illustrations. No ISBN. $42.00 ¶ 12/08/2005 12:53:00 PM
Darren Almond: 50 Moons At A Time is the title of an exhibition at K21, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen. Almond, a 2005 Turner Prize Nominee, presents his photographic work, which examines physical locations that were the inspirations for various paintings by 19th century romantics, such as Caspar David Friedrich, William Henry Fox Talbot, and John Constable. He is interested in the history and mythology of a place and how that history politicizes our experience of it. The photographs in this exhibition span 3 continents, and Almond has just finished work on a project in Siberia, about a railway bridge in a region dominated by sub-zero temperatures for 11 months out of the year. The most surprising thing about Almond's work is that moment of recognition, when you realize what the photo documents. Human progress has impacted only some of these locations, so they still remain highly recognizable, or at the very least, there remains a sense of somehow knowing the place despite having never seen it. Almond explains this work best:
"This body of work began seven years ago, by chance, with a photograph the duration of whose exposure coincided with the length of a kiss. That shot, Fifteen Minute Moon, sat in my studio for a long time. The brilliance of the moonlight and the colour-change of the landscape compelled me, as did the fact that it had all been made possible by increasing the length of exposure. The ensuing photographs ... were all taken on full-moon nights after darkness had fallen on landscapes I had already seen, and exposed by varying lengths of moonlight ... the landscape is completely in shadow and the camera removes that shadow." Darren Almond
A conversation with Julian Heynen is included in a back pocket in the book. 112 Pgs., 67 Color Illustrations. No ISBN. $42.00 ¶ 12/08/2005 12:53:00 PM
