FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
JAMES WELLING: New Abstractions and Work from the Seventies
March 3rd through April 22nd at the Donald
Young Gallery
Chicago - The Donald Young Gallery is pleased to announce this exhibition of photographs by New York artist James Welling, including abstract black and white photographs printed from photograms, laser-direct color prints from polaroids and original color polaroids from the 1970s. With his "Light Sources" series beginning in the early nineties, Welling has used the literal description of photography or "the inscription of light" as his subject, producing images which include light fixtures, landscapes, and interiors. He continues this investigation of light with the "New Abstractions" which were produced in 1998 and 1999 and were shown for the first time at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover on the occasion of DG Bankís prestigious 1999 Forderpreis for Photography, which was awarded to Welling at that time. About these large scale silver gelatin prints, the artist has written: I made these pictures by throwing and arranging strips of Bristol Board, cut to various widths, on sheets of 20 x 25 cm photo paper. The negative prints were scanned and digital files were used to output high contrast negatives which were projected to make the prints in the show.
Technically, these cameraless photographs are photograms. I decided to reverse the tonality of the images because I always saw them as black lines on a luminous white field like the experience of looking up at the sky through the rafters of an unfinished house.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1951,
Welling attended the California Institute of the Arts in the 1970ís.
His work is recognized and exhibited internationally and is represented
in many public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney
Museum of American Art (New York), The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Museum Moderner Kunst (Vienna) and others.
A traveling mid-career survey of his work will open at the Wexner Center
for Visual Arts, Ohio in May 2000.
The exhibition will open to the public
on Friday, March 3rd from 5 to 7:30 PM. The opening is free. Gallery hours
are Tuesday through Friday 10-5:30, and Saturdays, 11-5:30. If you
would like more information, please contact Maureen Pskowski at 312.455.0100.
-end-
JAMES WELLING