Laura Letinsky

Yancey Richardson is pleased to present Albeit, an exhibition of photographs by Laura Letinsky. Comprised of photographic assemblages made in 2013 using a flatbed scanner and magazines, the exhibition demonstrates Letinsky’s innovative approach to still life. These early forays in substituting printed matter in place of objects in the studio are being exhibited for the first time, and display experimental methods later developed in her series: Ill Form & Void Full (2014), To Want for Nothing (2019), A Blind Promise Or, A Rash Boon (2020).

In Albeit, the collage-like arrangements employ two-dimensional elements as sculptural objects, dissolving the hierarchy between high and low imagery. In place of the camera and studio set up traditionally used to make still lifes, Letinsky embraced the restrictions of the flatbed scanner to explore form.  As she states, “I was experimenting with the “democracy” of the flatbed scanner, it’s light and lens insensitive to the material.  The focus was variable only by what was closer to the scanner bed, the lighting is predetermined, and the scale is also small and predetermined. Working this way freed me up formally.”

Throughout her career, Letinsky’s work has explored ideas around desire, longing, consuming and at times the melancholy that follows gratification. The magazine images she cut out and arranged in layered compositions feature succulent fruit, gooey cakes, silhouettes of goblets, and cutlery on empty plates, suggesting meals consumed and enjoyed. Letinsky argues that photographs are read not only as information, but also as instructions on how to build our lives. We enact what we see in photographs and then photograph what we enact, creating an endless loop of production and consumption.