New Pictures 2: Marco Breuer

New Pictures 2: Marco Breuer
February 18 – August 1, 2010

Curator: David Little

Perlman Gallery 262
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55404

www.artsmia.org

The second exhibition in the MIA’s new photography series featuring important new work from international artists will present work of German artist Marco Breuer, one of the most innovative photographers working with abstraction today. His experimental approach eschews the camera itself, presenting abstract works created by exposing the surface of light sensitive photographic paper. Breuer’s photographs invite viewers to consider: What is a photograph? The exhibition will be on view from February 18 through August 1, 2010, in two parts. For the opening, Breuer will present ten works produced from 2001 to 2009. Then, in mid-March, he will alter the exhibition space by painting the walls black to evoke a darkroom and a space of creativity. The gallery will then serve as an arena for a site-specific drawing that integrates the exhibited works.

“Marco Breuer challenges the viewer to re-examine the most basic assumptions about photography,” said David E. Little, curator and head of the MIA’s Department of Photography and New Media. “Both his hand-made process and the modest scale of his completed works suggest new ways to create photographs during a time when Photoshop and monumentality are de rigueur. His experience as an artist and his single-minded approach make him an ideal artist to participate in the MIA’s ‘New Pictures’ series.”

Using an extensive and continually evolving range of processes such as cyanotype, gum bichromate, and chromogenic paper, Breuer physically extracts abstract and visually compelling images from photographic paper. He might place burning coals on the paper, or slice into it, or sandpaper the emulsion until holes appear. Much like mid-20th century European and American abstract painters, Breuer said he likes “to be in there, physically involved with the image.”

Breuer was born in 1966 in Landshut, Germany. He has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Europe and his work is included in numerous museum collections. His publication SMTWTFS received wide critical acclaim and a photo-eye Gallery Award for Best Photography Book of 2002. In 2007 Aperture published a monograph of his work titled Early Recordings. Breuer lives in upstate New York. Generous support for the New Pictures series is provided by H.B. Fuller.

Breuer will lecture on his work at 2 p.m. March 13, 2010, in Pillsbury Auditorium. For more information please go to the New Pictures Web site at www.artsmia.org/new-pictures/.