Daniel Gordon b. 1980
For all their grounding in photography, Gordon’s pieces invite painterly comparisons: his composites are like stripped-down versions of seventeenth-century Dutch tabletop still-lifes, rendered in a Fauvist palette. —Johanna Fateman, The New Yorker
Gordon's process begins with sourcing found imagery-such as of a vase or a plant-from the internet or by taking pictures with an iPhone. Gordon creates print-outs of these images, which he then cuts and pastes onto a three-dimensional structure that mimics the form and scale of the same vase or plant, thereby reconstructing the depicted object in paper. The resulting objects, albeit seemingly improvised and crudely constructed, are meticulously fabricated. Gordon then arranges these stand-ins into various tableaux, which he photographs from a single, frontal vantage point.
Gordon's marriage of digital and analog processes results in chromatic, highly layered works that delight in both the obvious and the confounding elements of their creation. Seams and fault lines are left unhidden-a wry celebration of the artist's hand that also acts to emphasize the material nature of both subject and object. This pixelation and degradation of the images, rendered in supercharged color, creates a contemporary take on post-impressionist and fauvist painting of the 20th century.
For most of his practice, Gordon's paper cutout objects have served as fundamental, yet ephemeral, elements in every work. More recently, however, Gordon's objects have found life as sculptures in their own right. For example, the artist's first ever public sculpture, Blue Poppies, eternalizes one of his paper cutouts depicting a vase with flowers in a feat of painted stainless steel and aluminum, transforming quotidian materials into a permanent monument. As one walks around the sculpture, one sees that the armatures are exposed, a testament to not only Gordon's hallmark wit, but also the significant involvement of the artist's hand within his photography practice.
Gordon's oeuvre is a labyrinth built from formalist notions of color, form, line, and composition. His photographs are comprised of disparate images that have been collapsed and recontextualized; modernist and classical references are remixed to bombastic effect, with plants and vessels repeated within the images to create spatial architecture for his imagined scenes. Exploring the theoretical traditions established by John Berger and Marshall McLuhan, Gordon challenges the false mystification of art historical titans such as Picasso and Matisse, all while celebrating the visual experience. Bringing together memento mori, portraiture, and still life, Gordon deftly synthesizes the history of image making. "It's a fiction and a truth at the same time," says Gordon, whose early Flying Pictures series (2001-2004) created whimsical illusions of the artist in mid-flight.
Gordon holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Yale School of Art, and he lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Solo exhibitions include: Daniel Gordon on the Greenway, Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA (2021-22); Green Apples and Boots, Huxley-Parlor Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2021); Hue and Saturate, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX (2019); and Shadows, Patterns, Pears, Foam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2014).
Museum exhibitions & collections
He has participated in several additional museum exhibitions, including Cut! Paper Play in Contemporary Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Secondhand, Pier 24, San Francisco (2016); Greater New York, MoMA P.S. 1, Queens, New York (2010); and New Photography Series, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009).
His work is included in prominent collections worldwide including Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Pier 24, San Francisco; Foam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the VandenBroek Foundation, Lisse, Netherlands.
Gordon's most comprehensive monograph to date, New Canvas, was published by Chose Commune in 2022. Additional publications of the artist's work include Houseplants (Aperture, 2019), Spaces, Faces, Tables and Legs (OSP, 2018), Intermissions (OSP, 2017), Still Life with Onions and Mackerel (OSP, 2014), Still Lifes, Portraits, and Parts (Mörel, 2013), Flowers and Shadows (Onestar Press, 2011), and Flying Pictures (powerHouse Books, 2009).