Laura Letinsky

Laura L. Letinsky (born 1962) is a Canadian contemporary photographer, born in Winnipeg, best known for her still lifes.

Letinsky's still lives are described as "Elegant, subdued and gently but relentlessly off-putting, her large-format photographs have an arresting presence that seems out of step with time. At the same time, though, art history suffuses her meticulously constructed scenes as fully as the softened daylight does the sparse interiors she photographs." Letinsky's still lives are reminiscent of Dutch still lives, they bring together "freshness, ripeness and decay."[1] Although they nod to Dutch still lives, they are more modernized, using "Crumbled Coke cups, styrofoam to-go cartons" instead of the upper-class, lush food of the Dutch still lives.[2] Letinsky is known for photographing her still lifes at true size making all the objects correct to scale.[2]

Much of Letinsky's work alludes to human presence, without including any actual figures. Letinsky's early series, Venus Inferred, explores ideas of intimacy and delicacy. She is known For example, in the Morning and Melancholia (c. 1997–2001), and the I Did Not Remember I Had Forgotten (c. 2002–2004) series, Letinsky seems to document the aftermath of a sumptuous gathering or dinner party.[3] The title of the series itself is a reference to an essay by Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia," which discusses the human response to loss. The title I Did Not Remember I Had Forgotten also has a literary source; it refers to a line by St. Augustine, commenting on memory, "One would never say I did not remember I had forgotten." Letinsky responded:

I was thinking, "No, that's not right!" Actually, I felt I had just come to this moment where I did not remember that I had forgotten, and it had to do with music. I'd gone for three years without listening to music. I would drive in the car and I would want silence, or I would listen to talk shows. Then for some reason I began listening to the radio, and some of the CDs I had around, and it was almost like drinking water after being really thirsty. I took such pleasure in it. Somehow, I did not remember that I'd forgotten to turn on the music.[4]

The Somewhere, Somewhere series (c. 2005) explores similar themes of seemingly vacated domestic settings.[5]

A recent exhibition of her work includes the following artist statement:

"Still life is unavoidably an engagement with and commentary upon society’s material-mindedness. Laura Letinsky’s photographs of forgotten details such as wrapping paper, plastic containers, Styrofoam cups, cans, leftover food bits, and found trinkets remark upon these remnants of daily subsistence and pleasure. Of major influence are Dutch-Flemish and Italian still-life paintings whose exacting beauty documented shifting social attitudes resulting from exploration, colonization, economics, and ideas about seeing as a kind of truth. But instead of the traditional allure of a meal awaiting an unseen viewer’s consumption, Letinsky photographs the remains of the table so as to investigate the precarious relationships between ripeness and decay, delicacy and awkwardness, control and haphazardness, waste and plenitude, pleasure and sustenance. What is looked at is "after the fact," what (ma)lingers, what persists, and by inference, what is gone. The photographs in After All veer into darkness; literally, as regards the time of day the photograph is made, as well as emotionally and psychologically. Little bits and pieces hover in white grounds blown flat by blinding light, later lurking in deep inky grayed out pools. Light, through its abundance and its absence, can record and reveal as well as obscure and exaggerate. Formally, through degrees of control and chaos, the domestic scenes Letinsky photographs are redolent with the allures of domesticity (safety, comfort, familiarity) as well as its dangers (boredom, satiation, lack of desire). These liminal images are not intended as accurate visual description, rather aspiring to describe another kind of sensing. What one sees is not always visible and Letinsky explores photography’s transformative quality, changing what is typically overlooked into something splendid in its resilience."

Letinsky is the author of several books,[6] including:

Recent solo exhibitions include:

Letinsky holds a BFA from the University of Manitoba (class of 1986), and an MFA from Yale University, 1991. Letinsky was also a Guggenheim fellow.[8] Her two cats are named Bean and Einstein.[9] She is currently a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "ProQuestDocuments-2016-06-20-18.pdf". Retrieved 2016-06-26.
  2. 1 2 "ProQuestDocuments-2016-06-20-17.pdf". Retrieved 2016-06-26.
  3. ↑ Emma Pearse, “Photographer Laura Letinsky Fails to Clean Her Plate,” New York Magazine, Entertainment, Vulture, 11 April 2008.
  4. ↑ Julie Farstad, “Laura Letinsky,” interview, Mouth to Mouth Magazine, Spring/Summer 2004.
  5. ↑ "Laura Letinsky: SomewhereSomewhere," 2005-04-28 until 2005-05-28 at Monique Meloche gallery, review, AbsoluteArts.com: Indepth Art News.
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ Laura Letinsky at the Renaissance Society
  8. ↑ "Laura Letinsky | Frieze". www.frieze.com. Retrieved 2016-06-26.
  9. ↑ Joseph Bellows Gallery, "Laura Letinsky, Artist Bio."
  10. ↑ The University of Chicago, Department of Visual Arts, Faculty: Laura Letinsky

External links

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