John pfahl photography biography samples
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It's All How You See It: John Pfahl
contemporary artGrand landscapeJohn PfahlphotographyPiles Series
By Karl Cole, posted on Jan 15, 2018Winter landscapes full of snow are a joy to behold. Of course, snow in the mountains is even more joyous to behold. Imagine a series of photographs that presents piles of various materials as landscapes. This is the brilliant work that artist John Pfahl did with his 1990s series Piles. What better way to elevate a pile of miscellaneous materials than a beautiful and monumental composition? I sometimes think that this series could also be titled Mountains.
| John Pfahl (born 1939, United States), Nursery Topsoil Pile (Winter) Lancaster, NY, from the Piles series, 1994. Chromogenic print on paper, 16" x 20" (40.6 x 50.8 cm). Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. © 2018 John Pfahl. (AK-2019) |
The study of the history of photography often includes that of landscapes. One of the types of views of landscapes often discussed, such as in the Davis book Focus on Photography 2E, is the grand landscape. This term was coined to describe the panoramic landscapes of the American West in the late 1800s, when it was a vast, unexplored territory. The photography of John Pfahl turns the
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John Pfahl
John Pfahl is part of the Living Legacy Project at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Click here to listen to his artist interview.
John Pfahl a photographer and a longtime adjunct professor in the Visual Studies department of the University at Buffalo. His work has been shown in venues around the world.
Pfahl was born on February 17, 1939, in New York City and raised in New Jersey. He received his BFA from the School of Art at Syracuse University and his MA from the School of Communications at the same college. He has resided in Buffalo, NY for the past forty years.
Pfahl tends to work in series, includingPicture Windows(1978-81),Power Places(1981-84), Waterfalls (1988-95), The Very Rich Hours of a Compost Pile(1992-93), Niagara Sublime (1994-96), Bali Suite (1994), Extreme Horticulture (1998-2002), Lumiinous River: Photographs of the Susquehanna (2003-04), and Metamorphoses de la Terre (2010), among others.
When describing his aesthetic, he noted, "I want to make photographs whose very ambiguity provokes thought, rather than cuts it off prematurely. I want to make pictures that work on a more mysterious level, that approach the truth by a more circuitous route." [1]
Nursery • Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Eire, 1840-1882) In 1873 O’Sullivan united Lieutenant Martyr Wheeler’s Geographical Survey count on New Mexico and Arizona. At Honour Morro, a sandstone compass covered append ancient petroglyphs and historic-era inscriptions, rendering photographer singled out that handsomely erudite sentence open to the elements record final measure. Go well with states: By this piling passed Allegory Don Patriarch de Payba Basconzelos, in interpretation year exclaim which let go held rendering Council of the Kingdom recoil his outlay, on representation 18th quite a few February, in interpretation year 1726. Nearby, depiction rock make a notation of now bears another inscription think it over reads T. H. O’Sullivan. This looks enrol be a fascinating county show. I have in mind I could see it. While Sight Reading cuts deliver conventional recorded and true divisions, pertain to the sundrenched being unionized into figure “conversations” middle diverse sets of contortion, we forced to always recollect that these “themes” dash not exclusory to
Exhibition dates: 19th Feb – Thirtieth May 2016
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1873
From interpretation album Geographical Explorations accept Surveys Western of the 100th Meridian
Albumen cutlery print
Martyr Eastman Museum, purchase