FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :
Regen Projects
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
t: 310 276 5424 f: 310 276 7430
www.regenprojects.com
JAMES WELLING
February 19 – April 2, 2005
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Opening reception: Saturday, February 19, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of James Welling's most recent
photographic work. This exhibition will feature a new series of large unique dégradé screen photographs, and a new series of color photograms of flowers. The dégradé screens are large unique photographs made by filtering light through screens onto photo paper. These luminescent horizontal works appear to capture bursts of light in vibrant yellow and orange hues.
The flower photograms are made by placing a flower on the negative and exposing it to light. Welling chose a common flowering plant, the plumbago, for the firework-like form of the blossoms. The photographs are printed in one color. Welling chose the colors based on Newton’s seven colors of the spectrum: red, orange, blue, green, indigo, violet, and yellow.
Welling's structuralist approach to photography has allowed him to explore a variety of formal and theoretical facets of picture making. Whether an abstract field of color or a common landscape, the subject of Welling’s work appears to be light. Welling often ties his practice to painting and its relationship to photography. Rather than strictly documenting the subject, Welling places the emphasis on how light articulates form.
Welling’s “subject matter shifts from abstraction to documentation: crumpled aluminum foil; drapes; shadows; light sources; trains, tracks; trees; industrial sites; views outside his studio. His works question any assumed differences between abstraction and representation, between modes of presentation. Welling’s photographs are objects in themselves, beautiful compositions that also gloss and comprise a history of photographic practices. Almost every idea its apparatus offers has been noted, somewhere. ... ‘From the beginning,’ Welling observes, ‘there was a dichotomy: the shadow of the object and the representation of the object, the two
great historical poles that are photography’s foundation.’ He tells the medium’s Manichaean history, ingeniously enlarging it with work that loves and ironizes both sides of the argument. ... Welling lavishes us with illusion and shatters it too, simultaneously dispensing a shot of contemporary ambivalence to the mighty image.” (Tillman, Lynne. “James Welling.” Artforum . May 2001. pp. 139-143.)
James Welling studied at CalArts in the early 1970's and for the past eight years he has been living and working in Los Angeles. Welling has exhibited at museums and galleries internationally, and he is currently a professor of fine art at UCLA. An exhibition of Welling’s abstract photographs was organized in 2002 by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the York University Art Gallery in Toronto. In 2000 a touring retrospective exhibition of James Welling’s work was organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and traveled to MoCA in Los Angeles in 2001. Monographs of Welling's photography include: Abstract , published by the Palais de Beaux Arts; James Welling : Photographs 1974 - 1999 ,published by the Wexner Center for the Arts; James Welling published by the Kunstmuseum Luzern in Switzerland; The Photographic Invisible: James Welling , published by Wako Works of Art, Tokyo, Japan; James Welling : Wolfsburg , published by Cantz in Wolfsburg, Germany; and James Welling published by Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland.
An opening reception for James Welling will take place on Saturday, February 19 from 6 - 8 pm at the gallery. For further information please contact Shaun Caley Regen or Lisa Overduin at the gallery at (310) 276-5424.
Regen Projects
633 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
t: 310 276 5424 f: 310 276 7430
www.regenprojects.com
JAMES WELLING
February 19 – April 2, 2005
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Opening reception: Saturday, February 19, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of James Welling's most recent
photographic work. This exhibition will feature a new series of large unique dégradé screen photographs, and a new series of color photograms of flowers. The dégradé screens are large unique photographs made by filtering light through screens onto photo paper. These luminescent horizontal works appear to capture bursts of light in vibrant yellow and orange hues.
The flower photograms are made by placing a flower on the negative and exposing it to light. Welling chose a common flowering plant, the plumbago, for the firework-like form of the blossoms. The photographs are printed in one color. Welling chose the colors based on Newton’s seven colors of the spectrum: red, orange, blue, green, indigo, violet, and yellow.
Welling's structuralist approach to photography has allowed him to explore a variety of formal and theoretical facets of picture making. Whether an abstract field of color or a common landscape, the subject of Welling’s work appears to be light. Welling often ties his practice to painting and its relationship to photography. Rather than strictly documenting the subject, Welling places the emphasis on how light articulates form.
Welling’s “subject matter shifts from abstraction to documentation: crumpled aluminum foil; drapes; shadows; light sources; trains, tracks; trees; industrial sites; views outside his studio. His works question any assumed differences between abstraction and representation, between modes of presentation. Welling’s photographs are objects in themselves, beautiful compositions that also gloss and comprise a history of photographic practices. Almost every idea its apparatus offers has been noted, somewhere. ... ‘From the beginning,’ Welling observes, ‘there was a dichotomy: the shadow of the object and the representation of the object, the two
great historical poles that are photography’s foundation.’ He tells the medium’s Manichaean history, ingeniously enlarging it with work that loves and ironizes both sides of the argument. ... Welling lavishes us with illusion and shatters it too, simultaneously dispensing a shot of contemporary ambivalence to the mighty image.” (Tillman, Lynne. “James Welling.” Artforum . May 2001. pp. 139-143.)
James Welling studied at CalArts in the early 1970's and for the past eight years he has been living and working in Los Angeles. Welling has exhibited at museums and galleries internationally, and he is currently a professor of fine art at UCLA. An exhibition of Welling’s abstract photographs was organized in 2002 by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the York University Art Gallery in Toronto. In 2000 a touring retrospective exhibition of James Welling’s work was organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and traveled to MoCA in Los Angeles in 2001. Monographs of Welling's photography include: Abstract , published by the Palais de Beaux Arts; James Welling : Photographs 1974 - 1999 ,published by the Wexner Center for the Arts; James Welling published by the Kunstmuseum Luzern in Switzerland; The Photographic Invisible: James Welling , published by Wako Works of Art, Tokyo, Japan; James Welling : Wolfsburg , published by Cantz in Wolfsburg, Germany; and James Welling published by Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland.
An opening reception for James Welling will take place on Saturday, February 19 from 6 - 8 pm at the gallery. For further information please contact Shaun Caley Regen or Lisa Overduin at the gallery at (310) 276-5424.