Almost 400 Photographs by New York-Based Artist Zoe Leonard on View in Major Exhibition at Wexner Center This Summer

Columbus, OH—A compilation of 368 images by New York- based photographer Zoe Leonard will be on view in Analogue from May 12–August 12 at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Featuring photographs taken on the streets of New York City and other urban centers, Analogue documents the slow disappearance of local markets, shops, and other small independent businesses in the face of an ever-expanding global economy.

Says Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin: “Zoe’s work provides a poignant glimpse of a particular texture of American street life that has all but vanished, along with images from other countries which reflect the impact of our global economy. Zoe brings a rigorous and unsentimental eye to the changing patterns of daily commerce and survival.”

A catalogue will accompany the exhibition and will feature an extensive sequence of images from the project and A Continuous Signal, a text compiled by Leonard from selected quotations about photography, cities, and other themes related to Analogue.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Installed in a sequence of grids, this immersive body of images, taken with a vintage Rolleiflex camera, and each 11 by 11 inches square, brings attention to hodgepodge displays in storefronts, handwritten signs, and homemade arrangements of goods. Leonard has also followed bundles of donated thrift-store clothing that make their way from the streets of New York to the markets of Uganda. Although no people appear in her photos, this project serves as a documentation of urban life at the end of the 20th century.

Analogue is filled with images of shop windows and the commodity objects contained within. Yet far from the glistening allure of the commodity in well-lit shopping malls or the digitally manipulated photography of mail-order catalogues, these objects are slightly frayed around the edges, holding on tenaciously to their disappearing place. Camera shops and photo stands (open and closed) appear repeated in the project, along with such other examples of analogue technology as typewriters or hefty console televisions. The advent and increasing acceptance of digital cameras and printing have transformed photography just as thoroughly as chain stores and multinational corporations have changed the face of commerce, and the Analogue project is a testament to both the endurance and the endangered status of photography itself. The tension between disappearance and tenacity lies at the heart of the pathos of Analogue, which chronicles in images some of what history is in the process of leaving behind.

ABOUT ZOE LEONARD

Zoe Leonard, the Wexner Center’s 2003–2004 Residency Award recipient in visual arts, is a critically acclaimed photographer whose work has been widely exhibited since the 1980s. With her work on view at such international exhibitions and venues as Documenta IX, The Museum of Modern Art and Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, Kunsthalle Basel, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Leonard has established herself as one of the most significant photographers in the country. Analogue will also be shown at Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, this summer and at Villa Arson, a contemporary arts center in Nice, France, in the autumn. A 20-year survey of Leonard’s work is scheduled for November 2007 to January 2008 at Fotomuseum Winterthur in Winterthur, Switzerland. Leonard is based in New York.

EXHIBITION SUPPORT The Analogue project was made possible by the Wexner Center Residency Award program and by funding from Creative Capital Foundation.

Additional support for the Wexner Center residency and exhibition was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Nimoy Foundation, Greater Columbus Arts Council, Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Center Foundation, and Wexner Center members.

Accommodations are provided by The Blackwell Inn.

VISITOR INFORMATION

THE EXHIBITION: Zoe Leonard: Analogue; a selection of 368 photographs taken by Leonard on walks through New York and other cities

DATES: May 12–August 12, 2007. Also on view: Robert Beck: dust, Chris Marker: Staring Back and State Fare: Three Ohio Artists LOCATION: Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 North High Street at 15th Avenue at The Ohio State University. Parking in Ohio Union Garage just south of the Center.

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday–Wednesday and Sunday 11 am–6 pm; Thursday–Saturday 11 am–8 pm. The galleries are closed on Monday.

ADMISSION: Free.

PUBLIC INFORMATION: wexarts.org or 614 292-3535