HackelBury Fine Art - Victor Schrager

Exhibiting March 4 - April 30, 2005

(b. 1950)

"The books are as necessary and irrelevant as Morandi's pitchers, Stieglitz' clouds, Cezanne's fruit, Weston's peppers, or Penn's frozen food.

The real purpose in making these photographs is addressing the box of space that sits in front of me, and seeing if it is once again possible to pull a compelling picture out of it; again and again, until the activity transcends the environment in which it takes place. Everything is surrendered to the visual. Elements are placed where they are most urgently needed. There is a horizon, there is gravity. Shadows are tangible. There is no one else in the room"

You can read more about Victor Schrager below, or go straight to his image gallery.

To find out more about this artist or arrange to view the works in person please contact katestevens@hackelbury.co.uk

Victor Schrager worked mainly in colour from 1980 to 1990, producing a body of still life photographs with a broad spectrum of cultural references: reproductions of works of art, books open to pages (to be read), small objects bearing decoration and information. These pictures were a re-introduction of still life photography as a mainstream pre-occupation, included in the exhibition "Fabricated to be Photographed" at the San Francisco Museum of Fine Art, and in the first Photography section of the Whitney Biennial, in 1981.

The current ‘Composition as Explanation’ series is inspired by a more diverse range of subject matter; parts of certain paintings, changes in weather, aspects of architecture, natural specimens and fashion photographs, to name but a few. It is primarily a coincidence that books, for so long a subject or staging element in other kinds of pictures he has made, are the apparent subject of these images. There is an irony in picturing the bearers of very specific information (on a variety of subjects including literature, history, botany, medicine and romance), only to purposefully suppress that information - but this is just a by-product of the process. The books are chosen only for their colour and volume; solid, everyday objects intended to point elsewhere - to space, to experience, to knowing.

-------

A Harvard graduate, Victor Schrager is a recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and of a MacDowell Colony Resident Fellowship. His work has been featured in numerous one person and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Japan over the past twenty years. His photographs are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Polaroid International Collection, The International Center of Photography, New York, The San Francisco Museum of Art, and various private collections worldwide.

Back to top of page

All prices are subject to change without notice and availability is subject to prior sale. Please call or email the gallery for current pricing & availability. Thank you!