Details

Provenance

Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, 2004

Literature

Peter Galassi, Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1991), cover and p. 78 Catalogue note ‘Philip-Lorca diCorcia involves us in the issues of story and plot by constructing tableaus that withhold information that we expect to be given. His pictures invite us to consider them in theatrical terms, in part because his pictures remind us of frozen frames from modern films. They invite us to wonder about facts that lie outside the pictures’ edges or that are invisible from our vantage point (What is in the refrigerator? Who greets the guest in the doorway?). These are questions that film typically answers in the next shot. In diCorcia’s work we see moments lifted without explanation from the flow of unfamiliar stories. His pictures are elegant and compelling puzzles to which the answers have been lost.’ – John Szarkowski, New Photography 2: Mary Frey, David Hanson, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1986)

Catalog summary

Philip-Lorca diCorcia B. 1951 Brian chromogenic print, signed, dated, and editioned '4/20' in ink on the reverse, 1988, printed in 1991 image: 16½ by 23¼ in. (41.9 by 59.1 cm.) Provenance Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, 2004 Literature Peter Galassi, Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1991), cover and p. 78 Catalogue note ‘Philip-Lorca diCorcia involves us in the issues of story and plot by constructing tableaus that withhold information that we expect to be given. His pictures invite us to consider them in theatrical terms, in part because his pictures remind us of frozen frames from modern films. They invite us to wonder about facts that lie outside the pictures’ edges or that are invisible from our vantage point (What is in the refrigerator? Who greets the guest in the doorway?). These are questions that film typically answers in the next shot. In diCorcia’s work we see moments lifted without explanation from the flow of unfamiliar stories. His pictures are elegant and compelling puzzles to which the answers have been lost.’ – John Szarkowski, New Photography 2: Mary Frey, David Hanson, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1986)