“Casebere allows us to fill the empty space of his spatial stage which produces the effect of
a primordially experienced landscape, at once close enough to be touched and distant
enough for reflection.” Anthony Vidler
Opening on 12th November 2003, Lisson Gallery is pleased to present its fourth
solo exhibition of work by American artist James Casebere.
Paradoxically emotional and austere, Casebere’s work centres on the point
where photography, architecture and sculpture intersect. Carefully constructing
table-top models of interior spaces using plaster, Styrofoam and cardboard, he
dramatically lights these miniature interiors or “sites” before photographing them
and enlarging the prints using high spec Cibachrome—a process usually
associated with lush, glossy colour photography. The results are both surreal and
remarkably realistic. Each model is specifically constructed to be seen through
the lens of a camera and takes advantage of photography’s ability to flatten space
and capture lighting effects invisible to the eye. Though devoid of either plot or
characters, his images of architectonic constructed spaces are nevertheless
cinematic and poetic, at times implying a mute melancholic loneliness.
Read moreIn this exhibition Casebere constructs three types of models, each in a different
style. The first category, inspired by the architectural work of Richard Neutra
and Victor Horta, he refers to as “International” and includes Wrap Around
Window, Dorm Room and Turning Hallway, each creating a somewhat dismal
architectural “present” vaguely suggesting globalisation. The Red Room, Green
Staircase and Yellow Hallway are images taken of “Neo-classical” models in the
spirit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. In these works the artist has “flooded” his
interiors creating a play of reflected light and shadows across liquid floors.
Although beautiful, the images suggest an element of chaos in a generic, neo-
classical colonial world. The third group “Traditional and Ancient” brings together
sites with Islamic decorative detail, east Asian structures, and western European
classic forms. Spanish Bath, Sienna, Minka with Dirt and Fog and Afghan Tunnel all
resonate on theological and socio-political levels, implying tradition and
spirituality in various states of disrepair, decline or danger. Taken as a whole, this
penetrating body of work evokes an underlying anxiety about the loss versus the
retention of things of value from traditional cultures, in our current global setting.
James Casebere lives and works in New York. He has exhibited extensively in
the U.S. including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of
Modern Art, NY and most recently in an exhibition organised by SECCA,
Gallery, Winston/Salem, which traveled to MOCA Cleveland, Centrede Art
Contemporain, Montreal, Canada and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He has
also shown widely in Europe including a solo show at the Museum of Modern
Art, Oxford; the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea in Santiago de
Compostela, Spain, and Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photograhie, Arles,
France.
