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Family
Vacation
Photographs by Karen Baker
September 11th- 26th, 2010
drkrm/gallery/west
is delighted to announce an exhibition of Family Vacation, Karen
Baker's photographs shot while on the consummate road trip to Boise, Idaho
with The Baby. Every family vacation you’ve ever taken
as a child, documented. An opening reception for the photographer will
be held on Saturday, September 11th from 6-9 pm. The exhibit will be on
view through September 26th, 2010
The Baby, a rhetorical figure in Baker’s work appears here in the
guise of tourist in the narrative of the family vacation. American culture
is investigated as a social subtext, connecting the past century to the
current one. This universal experience is celebrated in landscape, architectural
and classic snapshot photographs.
“We’ve all been trapped in the car with our parents and assorted
surly siblings on an interminable road trip that, in reflection, was the
best time we ever had,” Karen Baker explains. “These images
recall those vulnerable and now burnished memories alive in all of us.”
Art critic Peter Frank says the following about Baker’s work: “For
photo-purists, the recurrence of the dopey gray lump of cloth in photos
worthy of Robert Adams or Stephen Shore, or rest his soul, Julius Shulman
is a gnat worthy annoyance, a blemish that shows up time and again almost
like a scratch on Baker’s lens. But for the rest of us, The Baby
is Baker’s “beard”, the cover that gives her the moxie
to replicate various of contemporary photography’s horaiest tropes.”
Ms. Baker is a crossover artist from the field of fashion, having established
a successful career in various areas of fashion design for the past 20
years. Her interest in the disappearance of particular details of American
culture, drove her to document both the banal and beautiful aspects of
everyday America. Her images offer the viewer a perception of what appears
to be real and promotes the idea that not all we see is what actually
exists.
Ms.
Baker lives and works in Venice, California.
Exhibition catalog including "The Baby" DVD available in gallery.
drkrm/gallery/west is an expansion of the original
drkrm/gallery, exhibition spaces dedicated to fine art & documentary
photography, cutting edge & alternative photographic processes, and
the display / survey of popular cultural images.
Regular gallery hours are Friday, Saturday & Sunday 12-6 pm
and by appointment
All gallery events are free and open to the public.
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