STEVE KAHN – STASIS, CORRIDORS 1969-1980
2018-05-14The exhibition acts as a timeline, covering a critical point of evolution for Kahn as a photographer, a time when he transitioned from documentary photography to the more conceptual constructs of modern photography. Notable transitions from this time period appear in Early Work, Stasis, The Hollywood Suites, Triptychs/Quadrants, and Door/Window Constructions, concluding with Corridors in 1980.
Kahn was part of a generation of photographers coming out of Los Angeles in the 1970s that included Robert Heinecken, Ilene Segalove and Jerry McMillan, among others. They brought a conceptual and collage approach to photography, breaking away from the pure documentary impulse toward an interest in how photographs create meaning. As part of a pivotal moment in the history of contemporary photography, Kahn’s transition from the role of observer into the conceptual realm of abstraction is apparent through the directional concerns of the work hand-selected by Kahn for this exhibition. For Kahn, the process quickly became the entrance to a void with “no exit,” one in which a picture could function as a conceptual surrogate for an object well beyond the immediate act of looking. The found constructs determined the suggestive field of perception, and ultimately a deeper interpretation of space, form, and content.
Opposite – Stasis #1 (1973)
Exhibition runs through to May 26th, 2018
Casemore Kirkeby
1275 Minnesota Street #102
San Francisco
94107 CA
