Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to announce our participation in Frieze Masters at Regent's Park, London. From October 13-17, the gallery will present historic video and photography by peter campus in Spotlight booth #G20. This will be the gallery's first time exhibiting at Frieze Masters.
In the late 1970s, peter campus made a series of works whose subject was the human face. He produced over a dozen Polaroids and three video projections of different faces, all portrayed in high-contrast black and white. In each video, campus asked the sitter to project some feeling or thought non-verbally to the camera. The titles suggest a few possible interpretations of their expressions: Head of a Man with Death on His Mind, Head of a Sad Young Woman and Head of a Misanthropic Man. The sitters barely move in the videos, aside from an occasional blink or slight shift of their weight. They gaze silently forward for the entire length of the videotape, just over twelve minutes.
The photographs are studio portraits that have been carefully composed and lit, using two bright sources on opposite sides of the face or a low-angle beam, whose angle and intensity campus adjusted meticulously. In a demonstration of his technical skill, the faces emerge seamlessly from their dark backgrounds. The high contrast brings out the features and details of the skin and creates a sharp divide between the areas of black and white in the images.
These two bodies of work are deeply psychological explorations of all the things we're able to read (or imagine we can read) from someone's expression. They are also the culmination of campus' work from the '70s about cognitive psychology and the investigation of the self; after this, his work largely shifted to focus on nature.
One of the first generation of video artists, peter campus (b. 1937, New York) has pioneered ways of using video technologies for over five decades. After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Experimental Psychology from Ohio State University in 1960, he studied at The City College Film Institute and participated in the experimental workshops at Boston's famous WGBH-TV. In 1975, campus received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1976, he was awarded the National Endowment for the Art Fellowship. His work has been exhibited extensively with solo shows at the Jeu de Paume (Paris), CAAC (Seville), The Bronx Museum of the Arts (NY), Culturgest (Lisbon), Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), Kunsthalle Bremen (Germany), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), The Power Plant (Toronto), Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso (Mexico City), The High Museum (GA), and University of Michigan Museum of Art (MI).
campus is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (NY), Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), Albright-Knox Art Gallery (NY), Parrish Art Museum (NY), Philadelphia Museum of Art (PA), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin), Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Walker Art Center (MN), Weatherspoon Art Museum (NC), and Tate Modern (London). His pioneering career encompasses a wide range of media, including early video art, photography, and digital video. In his recent digital video work, campus transforms footage of landscapes and interiors into painterly scenes by using sophisticated digital techniques. A catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is forthcoming. He lives and works in East Patchogue, NY.
Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).
Inquiries
Candace Moeller, candace@cristintierney.com or 212.594.0550