About
I darken the room and set up the photo paper, creating something like a stage for light to act. Now, whatever happens in the world outside of the room plays out on what I created. Then I sit back and let the world unfold, and whatever happens, happens.
—Vera Lutter
Inspired by the architecture and light of urban and industrial landscapes, sites of transit, historical and contemporary monuments, and art spaces around the world, Vera Lutter employs unique camera obscuras to produce one-off, large-scale, black-and-white negative photographs.
Lutter was born in 1960 in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She graduated in 1991 from the department of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, and received her MFA in 1995 from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Experimenting with ways to capture the most direct possible impression of her surroundings, Lutter converted the room in which she was then living into a pinhole camera, thereby transforming it into an apparatus for recording its own appearance. Establishing an enduring guideline of altering her images as little as possible after their initial creation, she decided to retain the negative view her process generated and refrain from creating multiple versions or reproductions.
In subsequent works, Lutter began to explore her interest in the correspondences between nineteenth-century industrial development and the discovery of photography as a chemical process, overlapping phenomena that still exercise a far-reaching influence on everyday life and communication. Continuing to investigate these parallel histories, she identified a particular beauty in the monumental appearance and destructive potential of mechanical technology. Since the early 1990s, her New York base has also been a recurring subject. In her images of the city, ordinarily stable features such as buildings and streets are in a state of constant renewal. In Times Square, New York, V: July 31, 2007 (2007), for example, she depicts an iconic location with an ever-changing appearance and context, encompassing the rapid and ongoing reimagining of the contemporary metropolis.
Photo: Robert Banat
#VeraLutter
Website
Exhibitions
Vera Lutter: Time Travel
Jean Dykstra reports on Vera Lutter’s new series, produced on the occasion of a commission to photograph Athens.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2022
The Summer 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, with two different covers—featuring Takashi Murakami’s 108 Bonnō MURAKAMI.FLOWERS (2022) and Andreas Gursky’s V & R II (2022).
Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera
During a two-year residency at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from 2017 to 2019, Vera Lutter documented the museum’s changing campus and permanent collection, using her distinctive photographic technique. Here, she speaks about the experience with the museum’s director, Michael Govan.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2020
The Spring 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #412 (2003) on its cover.
In Conversation
Vera Lutter
Vera Lutter speaks with Gagosian’s Derek Blasberg about her Museum of Fine Arts Houston exhibition, using a shipping container as a camera, and her place in photography as we enter a digital age.
Vera Lutter: On New York
Vera Lutter sat down with Marvin Heiferman, an independent curator and expert in photography, to discuss her latest New York exhibition.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Public Installation
W1 Curates
Art For Your World: Vera Lutter
September 28–October 10, 2021
Flannels, London
www.w1curates.com
Vera Lutter’s photograph Drilling Tower, Kvaerner: November 29, 2000 (2000) is being exhibited digitally on a three-story building on Oxford Street in London, presented by W1 Curates, which brings art to the people by using cutting-edge technology to transform the exterior of the Flannels London flagship store into a digital exhibition space.
Lutter’s photograph will be one of eight artworks auctioned at Sotheby’s beginning October 8 in support of WWF’s campaign Art For Your World. This initiative seeks to mobilize the art world in the fight against the climate crisis by raising funds toward WWF’s work halting deforestation, supporting indigenous communities, restoring trees and forests, replanting seagrass meadows, protecting endangered species, and promoting sustainable lifestyles, ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in November.
Vera Lutter, Drilling Tower, Kvaerner: November 29, 2000, 2000, installation view, Flannels, London © Vera Lutter. Photo: courtesy W1 Curates
In Conversation
In Response
Perspectives on “Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera”
Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 7pm EDT
As part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s In Response program, architect Barbara Bestor, lacma associate curator Tushara Bindu Gude, artist Janna Ireland, and Helen Frankenthaler Foundation executive director Elizabeth Smith will reflect on Vera Lutter’s photographs documenting lacma using a camera obscura, which were taken between February 2017 and January 2019. The talk will be moderated by Jennifer King, lacma associate curator. In Response brings together creative thinkers from different fields to share diverse perspectives on the museum’s exhibitions. Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera will open to the public on April 1. To join the online event, register at web.zoom.us.
Vera Lutter, School of El Greco, The Apostle St. Andrew, c. 1600: March 2–May 14, 2017, 2017 © Vera Lutter
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
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Photographing the Fantastic
November 20, 2021–September 4, 2022
NSU Art Museum, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
nsuartmuseum.org
Photographing the Fantastic explores photographs of magical moments, the uncanny, and the wondrous, drawn from the extensive photography collection of the NSU Art Museum, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Work by Gregory Crewdson and Vera Lutter is included.
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 2001–02 © Gregory Crewdson
Closed
Vera Lutter
Museum in the Camera
April 1–September 12, 2021
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
www.lacma.org
Between February 2017 and January 2019, Vera Lutter documented the Los Angeles County Museum of Art using a camera obscura, creating photographs that examine the museum’s exterior architecture, gallery interiors, and permanent collection. This exhibition features the photographs made during this two-year residency.
Vera Lutter, LACMA from the Bridge, III: April 3–5, 2017, 2017 © Vera Lutter
Closed
Civilisation, Photography, Now
June 13–October 18, 2020
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand
www.aucklandartgallery.com
Civilisation, Photography, Now features more than two hundred works from one hundred international photographers. The exhibition considers patterns of mass behavior and the complexities of life in twenty-first-century urban environments. This show originated at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, as Civilization: The Way We Live Now. Work by Mike Kelley, Vera Lutter, and Taryn Simon is included.
Taryn Simon, Oxalis tuberosa, Peru (7CFR) (prohibited), 2010, from the series Contraband, 2010 © Taryn Simon
Closed
Civilization
The Way We Live Now
September 13, 2019–February 2, 2020
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
www.ngv.vic.gov.au
Civilization: The Way We Live Now features more than two hundred works from one hundred international photographers. The exhibition considers patterns of mass behavior and the complexities of life in twenty-first-century urban environments. This show originated at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul. Work by Mike Kelley, Vera Lutter, and Taryn Simon is included.
Vera Lutter, Clock Tower, Brooklyn, XXXVI: June 16, 2009, 2009 © Vera Lutter