Flying Pictues

by Gordon, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9781576875131
• ISBN10: 157687513X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-15
• Publisher: Powerhouse Books

Summary

"A straight photograph is an exact representation of a segment of space and time circumscribed by the physical and optical limitations of the medium. So, although the representation is exact, because of the circumscription, it is also a visual fiction. Daniel Gordon explores this boundary with inventiveness, playfulness, and physical stamina." -Stephen Shore "The artistrs"s short, gravity-killed glides are real, though his fantastical pictures suggest that computer-based trickery might have been used." -The Dallas Morning News "On a fundamental level, the art of photography is about the miracle, and how to make the ordinary extraordinary. These pictures do that in itrs"s purest form. They capture suspended moments, perfectly situated between transcendence and doom." -Gregory Crewdson Between 2001 and 2004, on the snowy fields in New Yorkrs"s Hudson Valley and the rocky coasts of the Bay Area in Northern California, photographer Daniel Gordon learned to fly-if only for 1/125 of a second. Using a camera mounted on a tripod, Gordon frames his picture. He then runs out onto the landscape and launches himself into the air, while an assistant snaps the shutter. The images inFlying Picturesare at once pastoral landscapes and documents of a performance. Only after considering them for a while, does the thought occur that their fleeting bliss was swiftly met with physical doom-a crash back to Earth. Such a journey requires great humility as well as hubris, and a will to achieve the impossible if only for a moment. The project began at a time when digital technology was changing the role that truth has historically played in the media of film and photography. The ease with which one could now alter an image with Photoshop created a new sense of paranoia concerning the veracity of photographs.Flying Picturesrs" unbelievable, unaltered images reveal that there never was just onetruthin photography.

Author Biography

Daniel Gordon was born in Boston in 1980 and raised in SanFrancisco. He received a BA from Bard College in 2004, andan MFA from Yale School of Art in 2006. He has exhibitedhis photographs in solo exhibitions at Zach Feuer Galleryin New York City, Angstrom Gallery in Dallas, and GroeflinMaag Gallery in Zurich. He has been included in exhibitionsat the CCS Galleries at Bard College, and Gallery 400 atthe University of Illinois. Gordon is the author of PortraitStudio (onestar press, 2009), and has been a contributor toColumbia: A Journal of Literature and Art as well as Esopusmagazine. Gordan's work will be exhibited at The Museum ofModern Art from September 15, 2009 through January 10,2010 as part of the New Photography 2009 show. He livesand works in Brooklyn. Gregory Crewdson Holds an MFA in Photography from YaleSchool of Art. His work has been the subject of multiple soloexhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, and is in the collectionof the Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum ofContemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Art Institute of Chicago;the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and The Museumof Modern Art, New York among others. Monographs of hiswork include, Twilight: Photographs by Gregory Crewds on(Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2003) and Gregory Crewds on: Dreamof Life (Ediciones Universidad De Salamanca, 2000). He livesand works in New York City.