London
John Stezaker
Whitechapel Gallery
77 - 82 Whitechapel High Street
January 29–April 18, 2011
Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
3, Park Dräi Eechelen
June 18–September 11, 2011
Curated by Daniel F. Herrmann
After forty years of sifting through antique photographs from thrift shops and flea markets—and then cropping and conjoining them to crowbar open their meanings—John Stezaker is finally being recognized at home. The ninety-plus works in his first UK retrospective should appear as a singularly unified whole, for the sexagenarian artist (who is still augmenting series he initiated three decades ago) hasn’t so much evolved as finessed his aptitude for the uncanny. As Stezaker dramatizes the irrational hold that particular images exert on him by, say, a virtuoso merging of a Hollywood actor’s features with the contours of a postcard landscape, his captivation becomes our own. The catalogue features texts by Dawn Ades and Michael Bracewell, plus a conversation between Stezaker, Herrmann, and Christopher Gallois.