JAMES CASEBERE

May 23 – July 5, 2002

The American artist James Casebere photographs three dimensional architectural models of interior spaces made at his own studio out of paper, cardboard, wood and plaster. These models (that, according to the artist are not very interesting on their own), acquire greater substance when transformed by the studied, dramatic light cast on them. These photos of miniature interiors, with their temporary, even fragile nature, contradict the generally held perception of architecture as having grand scale and permanence.

Casebere’s works have major traits in common with Post-modernism. They refute the myth of photographic objectivity, and suggest the replacement of the real by it’s simulacrum. His photographic representations are copies for which no original exists – or at least the original is not that which is being presented in the photograph.

However, many of the artist’s interiors are based on actual rooms, tunnels, and corridors. Nevision Underground #1, is inspired by memories of West Indies plantations, Yellow Hallways #1 and #2 from photos of Versailles, the Vaulted Corridors #1 and #2 Cistercian monasteries in the south of France, and Tunnel by a
photograph from The Guardian of a tunnel in Mazar I Sharif. Earlier series examined the architectural history of prisons, slave forts in West Africa and Thomas Jefferson’s mansion Monticello. While on the one hand being seductive in their beauty, these reconstructions and their associations are often laced with a sense of historic tragedy.

Through his work, the artist makes us realize how selective the information in a photo really is. Furthermore, the viewer is invited to move beyond first impressions and to realize the difference between that which we see and that which we think we see.

Through the years Casebere’s work has become more abstract, minimal, universal and consequently Modernist in character. Most recently, however, it has alternately become more elaborate, colorful and architecturally detailed. In this more colorful work the artist has added water, and it’s reflections, intensifying the illusion of reality while further threatening the solidity and permanence of architectural form.

In both these two concurrent directions the images are emotionally charged and devoid of human life. The empty, desolate buildings are on the one hand metaphors for human needs, fears and aspirations, and on the other, the embodiment of social structures and their past. Freedom and it’s loss is an issue often examined in Casebere’s work.