fragmented and re-imagined- curtis mann

The Whitney Biennial 2010 is upon us and I would like to share the work of artist Curtis Mann, who will be featured this year.

Curtis Mann's work is so intriguing to me. It is my understanding that he uses found imagery and enlarges them to produce a new image. He then uses bleach to erase some of the image and essentially create a completely new one. For one of his projects he used images which originated at sites of conflict such as Gaza, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon etc. which were found on photo-sharing websites such as Flickr.

This process enables him to change the way in which we read and interpret these scenes. I see fragments of a place, of people and have to approach the image with my senses fully aware to decipher what it is I am looking at.

I was exposed to Curtis' work through Jen Bekman and bought a piece through the wonderful 20x200 print program (the image below). I was intrigued by the transformation these images had gone through. They seemed so personal- as if they originated from his own personal family photo collection- and when I found out they were not, I was very surprised.




See Curtis' perspective on art, life etc... on his blog featured here. Or check him out at the Whitney Biennial which is on view until May 30th.

all images by Curtis Mann.