From “Tom Sachs: Cameras” at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Through September 16, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will show pieces  by Tom Sachs that focus on cameras.  Since 1972, Sachs has sporadically produced works that follow the evolution of photography as an art form. The exhibition, which is in collaboration with Sperone Westwater gallery in New York,  follows Sachs’s work in cameras, and will even include an opportunity for patrons to be photographed by the artist.

Related links:
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum: Tom Sachs: Cameras [Exhibition Page]
Tom Sachs [artist homepage]
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Offers a Snapshot of Tom Sachs’s Cameras [ArtDaily]

The show includes the earliest existing work by the artist, a clay recreation of a camera which Sachs, at eight years old, made as a present for his father.  With this and other works, Sachs conflates process and product, a confusion especially intriguing given its subject.  The cameras here aren’t the medium; they are the sculptural product.  As Aldrich exhibitions director Richard Klein says, “While Tom is widely known for his do–it–yourself version of Pop appropriation, the Cameras exhibition expands upon his interest in the functional, utilitarian, and socio–economic meaning of objects, rather than their superficial character.”

Untitled, Nikon by an eight-year-old Tom Sachs, currently showing at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Sachs, Untitled (CE Wood Leica) at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Tom Sachs, Untitled (CE Wood Leica) back, at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

From “Tom Sachs: Cameras” at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Born in New York in 1966, Tom Sachs studied at Bennington College in Vermont and with the Architectural Association, London.  Oslo’s Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst was home to a 2006 retrospective of the artist’s work, and his series “Bronze Collection” has been hosted by Lever House, New York; the Baldwin Gallery, Aspen; and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.  Sachs has shown at Gagosian Gallery LA; Prada Foundation, Milan; Sperone Westwater, New York; Deutsche Guggenheim; New York’s Mary Boone Gallery; and more.

From “Tom Sachs: Cameras” at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Tom Sachs, Scanner/Printer, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Sachs, Hasselroid, at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Sachs, Leica M6, at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Sachs, Christy’s Trash Nikon F2 with 58mm Nikkor F1 . 4, at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Sachs, Stun Guns, at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

Tom Sachs, Sony TR 81 with box, at the Aldrich. Image courtesy of the artist.

Untitled (Leica), from “Tom Sachs: Cameras,” currently showing at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Image courtesy of the artist.

– Rivka Fogel

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Go See. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.