ADAM FUSS

27 January – 14 April 2011

FUNDACION MAPFRE

Paseo de Recoletos 23, Madrid

Free entrance

This Adam Fuss exhibition comprises fifty

images, dating from 1986 to the present

day, including major series as well as the

première of his most recent works. The

selection gathers images that the artist

believes to be among his best. The project

is organized by the Fundación MAPFRE

and Cheryl Brutvan, Curator of

Contemporary Art at the Norton Museum and curator of his first survey in the United

States, in close consultation with the artist himself.

Adam Fuss makes photographs of unrivaled beauty and mystery with traditional and

historical photographic techniques. This is all the more unusual at this moment in time

when large format, digitally manipulated color photographs compete with paintings for

our attention. His decision to use the processes for making daguerreotypes, platinum

prints or photograms, for example, is not a statement against technology nor has it

evolved from romantic notions. He explores the best means to create the images that he

has in mind. The results are timeless pictures.

Since 1999, Fuss has worked on a series called My Ghost which concentrates on the

power of memory and loss. He has created an evocative series of haunting images that

capture for instance empty christening gowns and towering columns of swirling smoke.

Fuss used the labor intensive daguerreotype process, abusing it to create blue toned,

ethereal images that seem to contradict the intended permanence of the photographic

method. It is the artist’s sensitivity to marrying image and process that has resulted in

these dramatic pictures of remarkable beauty. A decade later, he has returned to this

series and focused on the tail of a white peacock or a magnificent image of the Taj Mahal

made from a 19th century paper negative he altered.

Born in London in 1961, Adam Fuss initially lived in England and Australia. In 1982, he

moved to New York where he began to make a living as a professional photographer,

documenting contemporary art exhibitions and the work of fellow artists. His artwork is

present in distinguished private and public collections including the Victoria and Albert

Museum, London; Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany; The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This exhibition will be the first survey

of Fuss’ career in Spain.

Adam Fuss is represented by Cheim & Read, New York; Fraenkel Gallery, San

Francisco; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Timothy Taylor, London and Marta Cervera

Gallery, Madrid.

FUNDACION MAPFRE

Paseo de Recoletos 23 Madrid

Telephone: +34 91 581 61 00

Free entrance

Opening hours

Mondays: 2-8pm

Tuesdays through Saturdays: 10am to 8pm

Sundays and bank holidays: 11am to 7pm

http://www.exposicionesmapfrearte.com/adamfuss/