Confetti During the California Summer Fires, 2008 © Luke Gilford
FOAM - Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 1017 DS Amsterdam Pays-Bas
At the invitation of Foam, Sophie Mörner, photographer and founder of Capricious Magazine, has created an exhibition of young (emerging) photographic talent from the United States. Capricious is a major innovative platform for contemporary photography.
The exhibition Continuity of Chaos shows the work of Luke Gilford, Nicholas Gottlund, Aaron McElroy and Sarah Palmer. These young (emerging) photographers have all been inspired by the concept of 'chaos'. Chaos is often considered as an anarchistic lack of order, not as an independent, harmonious phenomenon. But it is precisely because that lack of order is constant that it is considered within some philosophies as a state of unity and stability. Furthermore, the permanent unrest that is characteristic of chaos is necessary to allow new ideas to germinate - like the singing of the Muses. The works which are part of Continuity of Chaos show chaos as the basis of serenity, but also emphasise the impulse which is characteristic of chaos to distance itself from the natural order.
The work of Luke Gilford (Colorado, 1986) is a feast of forms and colours which have been extracted from their usual context. The abstracted figures and forms are never fully revealed, and chiefly evoke wonder in the viewer. Luke Gilford earned his bachelor's degree from UCLA in 2008. He has exhibited work at MoMA (New York), the MUSAC in Spain and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. He has also created work for Art Basel Miami, Maison Martin Margiela, Miss America and The New York Times Magazine.
Sarah Palmer (California, 1977) isolates objects from their ordinary surroundings in a way that evokes tranquillity as well as tension. The work has an alienating effect that challenges the viewer to see more than the sum of the parts. Sarah Palmer received a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1999 and a master's degree from the School of Visual Arts in 2008. Her work has been shown at the Wild Project in New York, Like The Spice (Brooklyn), the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art, the Center for Photography in Woodstock and in G/IRL: Women Photographers Emerging in Digital Culture, (New York). Palmer teaches fulltime at Parsons The New School for Design.
In the photos of Aaron McElroy (US, 1978) close-ups of bodies and body parts blur into hazy, misty contours. Identities are concealed and abstracted, creating new forms and visual landscapes. Aaron McElroy lives and works in New York and graduated from the New England School of Photography in 2007. His work appeared in the annual photo edition of Vice Magazine in 2009 and in Capricious Magazine nr.11: Being Fashion. His first solo exhibition was at dalla Rosa Gallery in London.
Untitled 1 and Untitled 2 © Aaron McElroy
Nicholas Gottlund (Pennsylvania, 1981) finds disorder - in nature or man-made - and frames it without wanting to bring order to it but in a way that creates the suggestion of purposefulness. He studied visual arts and graphic design at Parsons The New School for Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art. In 2007 he founded the Gottlund Verlag publishing house. His books are in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum. Previous exhibitions have been at the Capricious Space in New York and Bodega in Philadelphia.
Capricious Presents is a roving curatorial project, an extension of the former Capricious Space gallery, based in New York. The collection of projects and publications by Capricious occupies a rare and whimsical place between commercial and fashion photography. It is both a tool for discovering new talent and an artists' oasis. Sophie Mörner (Stockholm, 1976) founded Capricious Magazine and the publications that have stemmed from it. She studied at the Tisch School of the Arts, part of New York University. Following numerous group exhibitions, in September 2010 Mörner had a solo show in New York. In collaboration with photographer Anne Hall, she self-published the book The Known World. Her photos have been featured in a variety of international publications. As curator, she has also been responsible for exhibitions in New York, the Netherlands and Sweden.
VIgnette : Confetti During the California Summer Fires, 2008 © Luke Gilford.