Kahn & Selesnick
dal 13/1/2011 al 2/4/2011
Segnalato da
13/1/2011
Kahn & Selesnick
The Museum of Contemporary Photography - MoCP, Chicago
The Apollo Prophecies and Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea. Known for creating whimsical and elaborately constructed photographs, drawings, and sculptures, Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick have been spinning wild visual tales together for more than twenty years. Their practice involves dreaming up complex fictional narratives based on real historical events and injecting them with a wry sense of humor.
Known for creating whimsical and elaborately constructed photographs, drawings, and
sculptures, Nicholas Kahn (American, b. 1964) and Richard Selesnick (American, b. 1964) have
been spinning wild visual tales together for more than twenty years. Their practice involves
dreaming up complex fictional narratives based on real historical events and injecting them with a
wry sense of humor.
Their Apollo Prophecies (2004) project, for example, is based on a
reinterpretation of the first world event of historical significance that the two men remember
clearly. Both born in 1964, they were five years old when they watched the first American
spaceship land on the moon. In their version of the moon landing, the 1960s astronauts arrive on
the moon only to discover that someone has beat them there, in this case Edwardian dandies
who arrived circa 1905. The series is a compelling mix of elements drawn from historical and
science- fictional accounts of the moon landing, dating both before and after it occurred, and
those that Kahn and Selesnick simply dream up.
Kahn & Selesnickʼs most recent project, Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea (2010), features two
female protagonists wandering aimlessly in a bizarre Martian landscape. Like in the Apollo
project, someone has been there before them, and they encounter detritus from the mysteriously
vacated civilization including pyramids, obelisks, giant balloons, and concrete boats. Comprising
photographs taken by NASAʼs Mars rovers and by the artists themselves in the Nevada and Utah
deserts, these landscapes have a dreamlike quality. Their extensive research and weaving
together of both historical fact and pop culture interpretations, combined with their extreme
playfulness is what makes their work distinctive in the field of contemporary art.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Guy Tillim was born in Johannesburg in 1962. He started photographing professionally in 1986 and joined
Afrapix, a collective of South African photographers with whom he worked closely until 1990. His work as a
freelance photographer in South Africa for the local and foreign media included positions with Reuters
between 1986 and 1988, and Agence France Presse in 1993 and 1994. Tillim has received many awards for
his work including the Prix SCAM (Societe Civile des Auteurs Multimedia) Roger Pic in 2002, the
Higashikawa Overseas Photographer Award (Japan) in 2003, the 2004 DaimlerChrysler Award for South
African photography, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2005 and the first Robert Gardner Fellowship in
Photography from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in 2006. He has exhibited extensively around
the globe.
Richard Selesnick and Nicholas Kahn have been collaborating as Kahn/Selesnick since 1988 on a series
of complex narrative photo-novellas and sculptural installations. Their work has evolved into a series of
projects involving fictional attributions, narratives, and sculpture. Kahn & Selesnick have held artist
residencies at Addison Gallery of American Art in Massachusetts, the Djerrasi Artist Program in California,
and Toni Morrison's Atelier Program at Princeton University. Their solo exhibitions include
Schottensumpfkunftig, The REC, Past-Future, Scotlandfuturebog, City of Salt, The Apollo Prophecies,
Eisbergfreistadt, and more. The two artists met at the Washington University in St. Louis where both
studied photography; they each currently reside in New York.
MoCP SPONSORS
The exhibitions, presentations, and related programs of the MoCP are sponsored in part by After School
Matters; the Terra Foundation for American Art; the Lannan Foundation; the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; the
Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Graham Foundation for
Advanced Studies in the Arts; the Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation; The Kristyna M. Driehaus
Foundation; U.S. Bank; American Airlines, the official airline of the MoCP; and our members.
ABOUT MOCP
The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), a resident organization of Columbia College Chicago,
is the only museum in the Midwest with an exclusive commitment to the medium of photography. By
presenting projects and exhibitions that embrace a wide range of contemporary aesthetics and technologies,
the MoCP strives to communicate the value and significance of photographic images as expressions of
human thought, imagination, and creativity.
Press contact: Audrey Michelle Mast P: 773.459.5777 F: 312.344.8067 audrey.m.mast@gmail.com
Image: Stillborn, 2010, Ink jet print, Courtesy Carl Hammer Gallery,
Chicago and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York
Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP)
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