For its first exhibition of 2018, the Parrish Art Museum presents a comprehensive traveling survey exploring the dynamic relationship between architecture, photography and the viewer. "Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture" opens on Sunday, March 18 and continues through June 17, 2018. The exhibition presents features 57 images from the 1930s to the present by architectural and historical photographers. The images offers a nuanced perspective on the way photographs affect our understanding of the built environment and our social and personal identities, according to the Parrish.
The exhibition presents photography by 21 artists spanning the renowned to the under-recognized to emerging. Exhibiting artists include early modern architectural photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Samuel H. Gottscho, and Julius Shulman and the next generation, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Luigi Ghirri, and Stephen Shore. Contemporary photographers include Iwan Baan, Hélène Binet, James Casebere, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Hiroshi Sugimoto, among others.
In addition to photographs, "Image Building" includes ephemera such as magazines and books that illustrate the ways the meaning of photography shifts when presented in the context of high art or mass culture. The exhibition is organized by guest curator Therese Lichtenstein, Ph.D, who is an author, educator, curator and writer.
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"TWA Terminal at Idlewild, now JFK Airport, Eero Saarinen, New York, New York" by Ezra Stoller, 1962. Gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches. Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York and the Parrish Art Museum.
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The exhibition is organized thematically into Cityscapes, Domestic Spaces, and Public Places. Through juxtaposition, "Image Building" creates a dialogue between the past and present, revealing the ways photography shapes and frames the perception of architecture, and how that perception is transformed over time. The show also examines different approaches to photographing buildings in urban, suburban, and rural environments and the influences, similarities and differences across them all.
It also explores how the function and meaning of architecture may change by presenting works that demonstrate the ways photographers capture the spirit of a building or cityscape and the ways compositional choices can challenge the viewer’s perception of the built environment. Following the exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum, "Image Building" travels to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee and will be exhibited July 20 to October 28, 2018.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 160-page fully-illustrated color catalogue by Therese Lichtenstein, with a Foreword and Acknowledgments by Parrish Art Museum Director Terrie Sultan and essay by Marvin Heiferman. Published by DelMonico Books in association with the Parrish Art Museum, it is distributed by DelMonico Books • Prestel.
About the Curator
Dr. Therese Lichtenstein is a curator, author and educator. Her books include Twilight Visions: Surrealism and Paris (2009), which accompanied the same-titled exhibition presented at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and traveled to International Center of Photography in New York. She also curated and authored "Behind Closed Doors: The Art of Hans Bellmer" and wrote "Andromeda Hotel: The Art of Joseph Cornell" (2006). Lichtenstein, who received her Ph.D. in Art History from The Graduate Center, CUNY, has written articles and reviews for Art in America, Artforum, and Arts Magazine. She has taught at Rice University, Mt. Holyoke College, New York University and the International Center of Photography. She currently teaches Art History at the Ross School in East Hampton, NY.
Exhibiting Photographers
Photographers Represented in Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture: Berenice Abbott (American, 1898–1991) Robert Adams (American, born 1937), Iwan Baan (Dutch, born 1975), Lewis Baltz (American, 1945–2014), Bernd and Hilla Becher (German 1931–2007) (German, 1934–2015), Hélène Binet (Swiss-French, born 1959), James Casebere (American, born 1953), Thomas Demand (German, born 1964), Luigi Ghirri (Italian, 1943–1992), Samuel H. Gottscho (American, 1875–1971), Andreas Gursky (German, born 1955), Candida Höfer (German, born 1944), Balthazar Korab (Hungarian, 1926–2013), Thomas Ruff (German, born 1958), Ed Ruscha (American, born 1937), Stephen Shore (American, born 1947), Julius Shulman (American, 1910–2009), and Ezra Stoller (American, 1915–2004), Thomas Struth (German, born 1954), and Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, born 1948).
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BASIC FACTS: "Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture" is on view from March 18 to June 17, 2018. The Parrish Art Museum is located at 279 Montauk Hwy, Water Mill, NY 11976. www.parrishart.org. A Members Only Reception and Curator Talk will be held on Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 5:30 p.m. The talk features Therese Lichtenstein, Marvin Heiferman and Parrish Executive Director Terrie Sultan.
Public Programming includes a series of three "Inter-Sections: The Architect in Conversation." On Friday, April 6, 2018 at 6 p.m., exhibiting photographer James Casebere will discuss Constructed Photography; on Saturday, April 14, 2018, at 5 p.m., exhibiting photographer Iwan Baan converses with architectural historian, curator, writer and critic William Menking; and on Friday, April 20, 2016 at 6 p.m., architect Lee H. Skolnick, photographer Ralph Gibson and curator Therese Lichtenstein will discuss "Flattened Space."
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