Details:
① Artwork:
Bricks
At first glance, this work appears to depict an arrangement of bricks that have been uncovered by the deterioration of a crumbling stucco wall. Details in the print reveal they are not bricks at all, but pieces of glass that have been stuck to the wall with Velcro. The uniformity of color in the artwork functions as a momentary mask for the planned aspect of the composition—obscuring the artist's expenditure of energy and time in its creation.
This work is part of the series Drawns by the artist. In these works, Lehr calls attention to expressive places in the everyday world. In each photograph, the artist considers objects, images and words in relation to physical sites that elaborate, erase or otherwise modify their meaning. It is often unclear which comes first in these works—accident or intention, repair or damage, documentation or invention. As the title suggests, all these elements seem to coexist in the continuous present of Lehr’s photographs. These works highlight the vast gulf that separates images from lived experience.
In each artwork, the final print hovers over a gray rectangle that sits in the center of a larger white rectangle of the paper itself. These overlapping shapes suggest windows on a computer screen or applications on a digital device—or perhaps the pages of a calendar. Each of the three elements are treated with different varnishes in the artist’s studio to protect the print. They also repel and reflect light depending on the environment. The treated prints are then mounted to a rigid material, which is trimmed at an angle and placed into an acrylic float frame. When viewed from the front, the work appears to be an image; when viewed from the side, it is clear it is an object.
Specs:
③ Artist:
John Lehr’s photography frequently explores the construction of meaning in compositions that feature manufactured environments in various states of decay. His work examines different processes for photo development and alteration that highlight the impact of digital tools on the medium. Lehr employs a host of printing and mounting techniques when creating final prints of his photographs, drawing attention to the dual nature of each work—both as an image and as an object.
BIO:
John Lehr was born in 1975 in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2005, he received an MFA from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1998, he received a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland.
Solo exhibitions of Lehr’s work include: The Island Position at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2019); Selections from ‘The Island Position’ at Kate Werble Gallery Project Space in New York City (2016); If there was at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2015); Low Relief at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2013); Stet, a project room with Kunsthalle at M+B Gallery in Los Angeles, California (2011); and Gibberish: John Lehr at Hagedorn Foundation Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (2011); among others.
Group exhibitions that have shown Lehr’s work include: n e w f l e s h, curated by Efrem Zelony-Mindell at The Light Factory in Charlotte, North Carolina (2019); A Show Yet to be Titled at 83 Pitt Street in New York City (2017); Past Continuous at Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, New York (2016); Duplify at Kate Werble Gallery in New York City (2016); The Pure Products of America Go Crazy at Pratt Institute in New York City (2015); Human Apparatus at KLEMM’S in Berlin, Germany (2015); and The Pure Products of America Go Crazy at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona (2015); among others.
Lehr’s work is held in public collections at: the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio; the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Davidson Art Center at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut; The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City; the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut; the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.
Lehr’s work has been covered in numerous publications, including Musée Magazine, The Guardian, Photograph Magazine, Aperture, The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The Brooklyn Rail, Artforum, ARTnews, and Collector Daily, among others.
Lehr lives and works between Brooklyn, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.