galleryplatform.la
Vera Lutter
Fragments of Time Past
January 7–20, 2021
Nothing is solid in memory. Our minds only hold on to traces, outlines—and that is what my photographs portray.
—Vera Lutter
Gagosian is pleased to present Fragments of Time Past, a selection of photographs by Vera Lutter online for galleryplatform.la.
Since the 1990s, Lutter has used a camera obscura to produce large black-and-white photographs of buildings, landscapes, and urban and industrial sites. Reveling in the directness of this technique, she produces unique prints that imbue physical environments and buildings with an ethereal stillness. Reinterpreting familiar panoramas, Lutter erases fleeting human presence and collapses the movement of wind and water in long-exposure images that prompt reflection on the passage of time.
In Fragments of Time Past, Lutter depicts four different ancient and historical sites: the pyramids at Giza, the ancient Greek temples at Paestum, the eleventh-century Maria Laach Benedictine abbey in Germany, and the distinctive waterways and buildings of Venice during the city’s yearly acqua alta flood season. Presented in a monochromatic photonegative palette, these iconic landmarks and relics take on a new and uncanny visual life: lively canals are smoothed to glossy stillness and solid ground drops away, leaving behind skeletal architectural structures silhouetted against black skies.
#VeraLutter
Vera Lutter in her studio, New York, 2020. Artwork © Vera Lutter. Photo: Lukas Vogt
Related News
Tour
Vera Lutter
Museum in the Camera
Friday, January 29, 2021, 3–4pm EST
Join Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan and the museum’s associate curator of contemporary art Jennifer King for an insightful conversation and tour of the exhibition Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera. Between February 2017 and January 2019, Lutter documented LACMA using a camera obscura, creating photographs that examine the museum’s exterior architecture, gallery interiors, and permanent collection. Museum in the Camera features the compelling photographs made during this two-year residency. To watch the live event, RSVP at lacma.org.
Installation view, Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 29–August 9, 2020. Artwork © Vera Lutter. Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
Video
Vera Lutter
Museum in the Artist’s Camera Obscura
This short film, produced by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), features rare behind-the-scenes footage of Vera Lutter, her assistants, and the LACMA staff, filmed during the artist’s residency at the institution. Lutter and museum curator Jennifer King offer their insights into the artistic process and discuss the meanings they find in these dreamlike photographs.
Still from “Vera Lutter: Museum in the Artist’s Camera Obscura”
In Conversation
Vera Lutter
Martin Barnes
Friday, May 18, 2018, 2:30–3:30pm
Somerset House, London
photolondon.org
On the occasion of Photo London, Vera Lutter and Martin Barnes, senior curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, will speak about Lutter’s exploration of light, time, and movement and her use of a room-sized camera obscura to capture architecture, urban landscapes, and industrial sites. The pair will also discuss her decision to retain the negative image and refrain from multiplication or reproduction. To attend the event, purchase tickets at photolondon.org.
Vera Lutter, Cold Spring, IX: February 17, 2014, 2014
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2024
The Summer 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail of Roy Lichtenstein’s Bauhaus Stairway Mural (1989) on the cover.
Maurizio Cattelan: Sunday Painter
Curated by Francesco Bonami, Sunday is the first solo presentation of new work by Maurizio Cattelan in New York in over twenty years. Here, Bonami asks us to consider Cattelan as a political artist, detailing the potent and clear observations at the core of these works.
Frank Stella
In celebration of the life and work of Frank Stella, the Quarterly shares the artist’s last interview from our Summer 2024 issue. Stella spoke with art historian Megan Kincaid about friendship, formalism, and physicality.
Highlights: Salone del Mobile Milano 2024
This year’s Salone del Mobile Milano brought together a range of installations, debuts, and collaborations from across the worlds of design, fashion, and architecture. We present a selection of these projects.
Stanley Whitney: Vibrations of the Day
Stanley Whitney invited professor and musician-biographer John Szwed to his studio on Long Island, New York, as he prepared for an upcoming survey at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum to discuss the resonances between painting and jazz.
Richard Armstrong
Richard Armstrong, director emeritus of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, joins the Quarterly’s Alison McDonald to discuss his election to the board of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, as well as the changing priorities and strategies facing museums, foundations, and curators. He reflects on his various roles within museums and recounts his first meeting with Frankenthaler.
Touch of Evil
Andrew Russeth situates Jamian Juliano-Villani’s daring paintings within her myriad activities shaking up the art world.
Vladimir Kagan’s First Collection: An Interview with Chris Eitel
Chris Eitel, Vladimir Kagan’s protégé and the current director of design and production at Vladimir Kagan Design Group, invited the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier to the brand’s studio in New Jersey, where the two discussed the forthcoming release of the First Collection. The series, now available through holly hunt, reintroduces the first chair and table that Kagan ever designed—part of Eitel’s efforts to honor the furniture avant-gardist’s legacy while carrying the company into the future.
Institutional Buzz
On the occasion of Andrea Fraser ’sexhibition at the Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare in Bolzano, Italy, Mike Stinavage speaks with the feminist performance artist about institutions and their discontents.
Simon Hantaï: Azzurro
Join curator Anne Baldassari as she discusses the exhibition Simon Hantaï:Azzurro, Gagosian, Rome, and the significance of blue in the artist’s practice. The show forms part of a triptych with Gagosian’s two previous Hantaï exhibitions, LES NOIRS DU BLANC, LES BLANCS DU NOIR at Le Bourget in 2019–20, and Les blancs de la couleur, la couleur du blanc in New York, in 2022.
Game Changer: Alexey Brodovitch
Gerry Badger reflects on the persistent influence of the graphic designer and photographer Alexey Brodovitch, the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.
Outsider Artist
David Frankel considers the life and work of Jeff Perrone, an artist who rejected every standard of success, and reflects on what defines an existence devoted to art.