Eileen Quinlan, Smoke & Mirrors #12, 2005
Nov 20, 2015
0:00
Eileen Quinlan, Smoke & Mirrors #12, 2005
0:00
Elisabeth Sherman: This work from 2005 by Eileen Quinlan is from the body of work that she made when she was getting her master's degree in fine arts at Columbia University.
This whole series called Smoke and Mirrors is made by setting up arrangements in her studio using just that, smoke and mirrors and lighting gels and other tools of photography setups that one might use in advertising or other kinds of product shoots, and making these arrangements in her studio that when photographed are much more confusing than the elements that they initially contain.
So the smoke and the lighting gels are reflected in these complex combinations of mirrors, creating a disorienting abstraction that really challenges this idea of photography as purely documenting the real world and pushes it to somewhere that's engaging more with say abstract painting, in a way, than even the traditional history of photography.
Narrator: A more recent work hangs nearby—it’s called Failed Portrait. To hear about it, please tap your screen.
Listen to a selection of audio stops about selected works in the exhibition, Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, co-organized by the Whitney and the Centre Pompidou. This audio guide includes an introduction by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner with commentary by Elisabeth Sussman, curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, and Elisabeth Sherman, assistant curator, Whitney Museum of American Art.