New Trajectories II:
expansions
Recent photography by Gregory Crewdson and Candida Hofer
from the Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles
April 11—June 11, 2006



Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (North by Northwest), Summer, 2004, Digital C-print, 64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6. Image courtesy of the artist and the Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles


PUBLIC ARTIST TALK
Gregory Crewdson will give a public lecture on Tuesday, April 25, 7 p.m., in Vollum lecture hall at Reed College. The Cooley Gallery will hold extended hours, from 5-7 p.m., prior to the lecture. No admission charge.

BACK ROOM SYMPOSION
ripe's back room will feature Crewdson in conversation with Cooley Gallery director and exhibition curator Stephanie Snyder on Wednesday, April 26, 7 p.m. Matthew Stadler, ripe's writer in residence, hosts; sumptuous cuisine by Naomi Hebberoy. For reservations, call ripe at 503/235-2294.


New Trajectories II: expansions presents recent work by photographers Gregory Crewdson and Candida Hofer, two internationally renowned practitioners who explore the construction, narrative properties, and imaginary qualities of spatial environments. While Crewdson stages elaborate, Hollywood-scale environments that are captured in individual images, Hofer isolates aspects of existing environments, exposing their enigmatic qualities. In both photographers' work, a pervasive stillness prevails. Expansions exhibits a body of seven large-scale works by Gregory Crewdson (completed in 2004-05) and two large-scale works by Hofer.

Expansions, part two of the New Trajectories series, is curated by Stephanie Snyder, John and Anne Hauberg Curator and director of the Cooley gallery, and organized by Andrea Feldman Falcione, curator of the Ovitz Family Collection.

Crewdson's work is somewhat controversial, in part because it is composed of constructed fictions that are based upon and use the strategies of film making. The work is both photography and film, with the end result fixed through photography. Crewdson's work agitates photography's properties as an indexical medium. The space is completely contrived, yet deeply imaginative.

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (North by Northwest), Summer, 2004, Digital C-print, 64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6. Image courtesy of the artist and the Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

Crewdson, who cites Stephen Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind as one of his most seminal influences, asserts, "All photographs are unresolved. Unlike other narrative forms, a photo is mute and frozen in time. There is no before and no after. The events remain a mystery." Of Close Encounters , he notes: "I hope I achieve a similar tension between wonder and dread in my work."

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (Backyard Romance), Summer, 2004, Digital C-print, 64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6. Image courtesy of the artist and the Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles



Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (Summer Rain), Summer, 2004, Digital C-print, 64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6. Image courtesy of the artist and the Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles


WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

CANDIDA HOFER
Etablissement Thermal Enghien-les-Bains I, 1999
Photographic C-Print
59.75 x 59.75 in.
Edition 3 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

CANDIDA HOFER
Bank Nurnberg, 1999
Photographic C-Print
59.75 x 59.75 in.
Edition 2 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (Backyard Romance), Summer 2004
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (Bed of Roses), Winter 2005
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (Man in Living Room with Hole), Winter 2005
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (North by Northwest), Summer 2004
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (Summer Rain), Summer 2004
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (Sunday Roast), Winter 2005
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled (Vanity), Winter 2005
Digital C-Print
64.25 x 94.25 in.
Edition 5 of 6
Ovitz Family Collection, Los Angeles

Biography: Gregory Crewdson
Gregory Crewdson received a B.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase in 1985 and an M.F.A. in photography from Yale in 1988. He has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York City. Mr. Crewdson's work has been included in many public collections, most notably the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has received numerous awards including the Skowhegan Medal for Photography, the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship and the Aaron Siskind Fellowship. Mr. Crewdson has published several books of his photographs including Hover with ArtSpace Books, Dream of Life with the University of Salamanca, Spain and Twilight with Harry N. Abrams Books. Most recently, Hatje Cantz published a book of his work entitled Gregory Crewdson from 1985 to 2005. He is Senior Critic at the Yale School of Art.   His exhibition, Beneath the Roses was exhibited this past spring at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, White Cube in London and Luhring Augustine in New York. 

About the Ovitz Family Collection
Michael and Judy Ovitz have been listed among the top art collectors in the world by such publications as Art News and Art and Antiques. The Ovitz's began collecting modern and contemporary art in the late 1970's.  Their first purchases were prints by artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Philip Guston, and James Rosenquist.  As the art market took off in the early 1980's, Michael and Judy became more interested in contemporary painting and sculpture and began to spend weekends making gallery and studio visits in both Los Angeles and New York.  During this period, their collection expanded to include the work of Julian Schnabel, Eric Fischl, Joel Shapiro, David Salle, Brice Marden, Lucas Samaras, Robert Irwin, Elizabeth Murray, Terry Winters and Ken Price.

In 1991 Michael Ovitz was asked to join the board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Mr. Ovitz continues to sit on this board and helps to shape the exhibition programs, expansion project and numerous other facets of this esteemed institution. The new millennium brought with it a renewed and rejuvenated interest in the contemporary market and Michael and Judy are quickly amassing an important collection of younger artists. 

This young contemporary collection includes works by artists such as Ghada Amer, Mamma Anderson, Kevin Appel, Michel Borremans, Cecily Brown, Ingrid Calame, Nigel Cooke, Jay Davis, Peter Doig, Tim Eitel, Inka Essenhigh, Tom Friedman, Barnaby Furnas, Francesca Gabbiani, Tim Gardner, Eberhard Havekost, Martin Kobe, Julie Mehretu, Dave Muller, Laura Owens, Richard Patterson, Monique Prieto, Richard Prince, Michael Raedecker, Neo Rauch, Wilhem Sasnal, David Schnell, Dana Schutz, Dirk Skreber, David Thorpe, and Peter Wegner among others.