39
Anne Collier
Eye (Enlargement of Color Negative)
- Estimate
- £25,000 - 35,000‡
£37,500
Lot Details
Chromogenic print, flush-mounted.
2007
Image: 119.4 x 133.4 cm (47 x 52 1/2 in.)
Frame: 129.5 x 144.1 cm (51 x 56 3/4 in.)
Frame: 129.5 x 144.1 cm (51 x 56 3/4 in.)
Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 1/5 on an artist label accompanying the work.
This work is number 1 from the sold-out edition of 5 + 2 AP. This image exists only in this size and edition. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York holds another print of this image.
This work is number 1 from the sold-out edition of 5 + 2 AP. This image exists only in this size and edition. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York holds another print of this image.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
'This tension – between what is depicted and the nature of its depiction – is central to my approach.'
Anne Collier
Photographing found objects and appropriated imagery, Anne Collier questions the ways these images are presented and perceived, aiming to elicit ‘a sense of emotional or psychological uncertainty’ through her image-making process. In Eye (Enlargement of a Color Negative), 2007, she has photographed an open book, revealing a page with a full-bleed close up of a woman’s bright green eye with mascara painted eyelashes. She flattens the three-dimensional quality of the book by presenting it against a plain black background and cutting off the edge of the facing page. Eliminating many of the visual clues that identify what we are seeing, Collier’s approach to editing and framing is seemingly detached. This act of distancing herself, and in turn, the viewer from the physicality of existing objects creates a tension between what we see and how we perceive it.
Influenced by the work of Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons and other ‘Pictures Generation’ artists, Collier questions and re-contextualises popular imagery and visual clichés as seen in the present work. Collier argues that in relation to photographic image making, the eye, a recurring motif in her work, ‘remains a compelling analogous image, simply because the camera approximates the mechanics of the eye and seeing to such an extraordinary degree.’ She challenges how photography structures our ways of seeing by drawing our attention to these mechanics. The title Eye (Enlargement of a Color Negative) connotes the darkroom processes, making us aware that we are looking at a photograph of a photograph. In this striking image of an eye, Collier transforms the object into the subject and asks us to join her in analysing the process of presentation and perception.
Born in Los Angeles in 1970, Collier studied at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), working with leading West Coast artists John Baldessari and Christopher Williams, among others. In 2014-2015, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, held her first major institutional exhibition, which included another print of this image. Her work is held in such prominent institutions as Tate Modern, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Anne Collier
Photographing found objects and appropriated imagery, Anne Collier questions the ways these images are presented and perceived, aiming to elicit ‘a sense of emotional or psychological uncertainty’ through her image-making process. In Eye (Enlargement of a Color Negative), 2007, she has photographed an open book, revealing a page with a full-bleed close up of a woman’s bright green eye with mascara painted eyelashes. She flattens the three-dimensional quality of the book by presenting it against a plain black background and cutting off the edge of the facing page. Eliminating many of the visual clues that identify what we are seeing, Collier’s approach to editing and framing is seemingly detached. This act of distancing herself, and in turn, the viewer from the physicality of existing objects creates a tension between what we see and how we perceive it.
Influenced by the work of Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons and other ‘Pictures Generation’ artists, Collier questions and re-contextualises popular imagery and visual clichés as seen in the present work. Collier argues that in relation to photographic image making, the eye, a recurring motif in her work, ‘remains a compelling analogous image, simply because the camera approximates the mechanics of the eye and seeing to such an extraordinary degree.’ She challenges how photography structures our ways of seeing by drawing our attention to these mechanics. The title Eye (Enlargement of a Color Negative) connotes the darkroom processes, making us aware that we are looking at a photograph of a photograph. In this striking image of an eye, Collier transforms the object into the subject and asks us to join her in analysing the process of presentation and perception.
Born in Los Angeles in 1970, Collier studied at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), working with leading West Coast artists John Baldessari and Christopher Williams, among others. In 2014-2015, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, held her first major institutional exhibition, which included another print of this image. Her work is held in such prominent institutions as Tate Modern, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature