Inspired by the Wurts Bros.’s novel technique of aligning ground level shots of skyscrapers with images taken from the upper levels of a nearby building, Julie Boserup adds found images, drawing, geological images and her own photographs shot in the streets of New York to an enlarged digital print from the archive.
Whereas photographer Lionel Wurts chose his technique of combined images to compensate for the misleading perspective of the bystander’s view, Boserup crafts new visions of the historical document in order to add layers of meaning, mingling both the familiar and fantastical. In Lobby I, Boserup has thoughtfully arranged autumnal-toned lake views and sky- blue blocks of color within the sleek, modernist interior of the 1961 First National City Bank Building. Between the lobby’s silvery steel columns and marbled floors, beautifully illustrating the Wurts’ practice of using large glass plate negatives, Boserup also interjects a recent shot of snowy Central Park, offering a new perspective on historical and architectural archives and the information contained therein, and the cyclical nature of time.
Julie Boserup writes: “As commercial photography, these images underline the dream and vision of the building. But at the same time, when you see the amount of images that look alike, you get the feeling of how ‘skyscrapers are at once exceptional and deeply normative’. Stunning and plain. As an artist working with collages, I find it very interesting as an early example of how you can manipulate the motive and squeeze more information into the image than what you can actually see in the viewfinder. How can we stand on the street and be in the sky at the same time? How can we see the detail and keep the overview at once?”
Julie Boserup, Misleading Perspectives
September 15 through November 26, 2016
Artist talk on Monday, September 19, at 7pm with Sean Corcoran, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York.
Sous Les Etoiles Gallery
100 Crosby St #603
New York, NY 10012
http://www.souslesetoilesgallery.net/
