Rochester, N.Y., March 7, 2014--George Eastman House will open its exhibition Of Time and Buildings on March 8. The exhibition includes work by several artists exploring the relationship between photographic images of the built environment and our experience of place. New ways of image-making are contrasted with earlier approaches to take people on a journey through place and time. The exhibition will be on view in the museum's Entrance Gallery until June 8.
"The invention of photography in 1839 changed our understanding of the world," said Lisa Hostetler, curator-in-charge, Department of Photography, George Eastman House. "As photographs became increasingly ubiquitous in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, they provided visual access to places that were often physically inaccessible to most of the population, and came to play a major role in our understanding and experience of place."
The photographers in this three-month exhibition approach the photographic interpretation of the built environment in a variety of ways. Some, such as Kenneth A. Hedrich, reinforce the conceptual goals of public buildings, while others explore a more personal realm in which the representation of space resonates with private significance. In his photograph of what appears to be the flooded interior of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's legendary home, James Casebere suggests the power of architectural structures to initiate a connection between personal experience and historical memory.
The exhibition also highlights contemporary photographers who use digital means to achieve their artistic goals. Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao combines multiple photographic images into a single city view, creating an unreal yet seemingly authentic impression. Susan Dobson uses digital tools to create images of buildings as she imagines they might become in the future, after they have succumbed to the inevitable effects of time and entropy.
Other artists whose photographs are included in this exhibition are Feng Bin, John Divola, Odette England, Eirik Johnson, Lori Nix, and Marc Yankus.
The exhibition is organized in association with the University of Guelph, Ontario, and supported by a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Of Time and Buildings is included with museum admission. For more information, visit eastmanhouse.org or call (585) 271-3361.
About George Eastman House
George Eastman House holds unparalleled collections, totaling more than four million objects, of photographs, motion pictures, cameras and technology, and photographically illustrated books. Established as an independent non-profit institution in 1947, it is the world's oldest photography museum and third largest film archive in the United States. The museum is in Rochester, NY, and includes the National Historic Landmark house and gardens of George Eastman, the philanthropist and father of popular photography and motion picture film. Learn more at eastmanhouse.org.
