John Stezaker

Galerie Simpson is delighted to launch this unique couple of gravure prints.


Stezaker appropriates publicity shots of film stars from the 1930s and 1940s. Cutting and juxtaposing the images once intended to communicate glamour and familiarity, Stezaker's couple is distinguished by an air of disquiet; redolent of alienation they are caught in a witty photographic limbo. His intervention is both subtle and brutal.

Polymer Gravure on Hahnemuhle 300 gsm, and on a paper size of 40.5 x 47 cms, they are published in an edition of 125.

 

Enquiries - office@galeriesimpson.com

These works are also available framed click here for details 

 

 

John Stezaker graduated from the Slade School of Art in 1973. He was recently the subject of a major retrospective at The Whitechapel Gallery,  London (2011). Until 2006 he was Senior Tutor in Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art in London.

 

His first work with collage were photomontages he made at the Slade in 1968;  he arranged fragments from the background of adverts into a Mondrian-like grid. He moved from photomontage to collages which he has been working on since the early 70s (his work was included in New Art show of 1972 at the Hayward Gallery). He explains 'To me, montage approaches the world of photographic images as if they’re kind of particles of speech, and tries to combine them as words to make meaning. My position is the opposite, it’s about the total illegibility of images.'

 

He has been  compared to Bataille, Debord, Surrealism (The Independent said post neo-surrealist) and been recognised as a key influence on the YBAs and contemporary art. His source material includes 1930s and 1940s publicity shots of film stars, vintage landscape photographs and topographical images of Prague from second-hand book shops in Hampstead (deposited by Jewish emigrees). He is recognised not only for the theoretical depth of his work but also its delicacy and poetry. He says 'you can only get a feeling of the inviolable purity and sanctity of the emulsion of a photograph by violating it'

 

John Stezaker is represented by The Approach Gallery.

2012

Out Of Focus: Photography, Saatchi Gallery, London

2011

John Stezaker (solo show), Whitechapel Gallery, London, touring to Mudam, Luxembourg and Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, USA

2010

John Stezaker: Silkscreens (solo show), Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany

Lost Images (solo show), Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany

Tabula Rasa (solo show), The Approach, London

HEAD, The Approach, London

2009

Richard Grey Gallery, Chicago

Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne

Friedrich Petzel, New York

2008

Masks, A Palazzo Gallery, Brescia

Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, Düsseldorf

Fumetti, GAK- Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen

2007

Two part show: Marriages, Karsten Schubert, London

Masks, The Approach, London

The Rubell Family Collection, Miami

Stills Gallery, Edinburgh

Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool

Project Room, Yvon Lambert, Paris

2006

John Stezaker (solo show), The Approach, London, UK

Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, Düsseldorf, Germany

Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, USA

Bridges and other Metaphors, Norwich Gallery, Norwich, UK John Stezaker,

White Columns, New York, USA

2005

Archiv & Erzählung [Archives and Narration]: John Stezaker and T.J. Wilcox, Kunstverein Muenchen, Munich, Germany

Cut, The Approach, London

2004

The Third Person Archives and Other Works, The Approach, London

 

 

Interview coming soon.

Dominic Eichler, John Stezaker,  Frieze Magazine Issue 136 (January-February 2011)

 

Laura Cumming, John Stezaker; Moving Portraits, The Guardian (3oth January 2011)

 

Brian Dillon, John Stezaker, What a Carve Up, The Guardian ( 29th January 2011)

 

Dan Kidner, John Stezaker, Frieze Magazine (12th December 2007)

'Untitled' 2007  &  'L' 2007 (Pair of prints)

'Untitled' 2007 & 'L' 2007 (Pair of prints)

Polymer Gravure
Edition of 125
Hahnemuhle 300 gsm 40.5 x 47 cms

Reserved

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