July 19 – August 23, 2008
Reception for the Artists: Saturday, July 19, 6 – 9 pm
Los Angeles, CA—Sam Lee Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition I Am I A Killer. The show opens July 19 and closes August 23, 2008; the gallery will host an opening reception for the artists on Saturday, July 19, from 6 to 9 p.m.
I AM I A KILLER takes its name directly from a photograph by Helen Levitt c. 1940, which captures those exact words drawn with chalk on a boarded-up window. From a series of photographs made between 1938–48 documenting children’s chalk drawings in the streets and sidewalks of New York City, the photograph functions as both historical document and reflexive statement on the photographic act. Although the title of the photograph is "I AM A KILLER," another chalk mark in the image articulates a second ‘I’ thereby complicating the phrase and its relationship to the photographer—is the photograph stating “I am a Killer,” or asking “Am I a killer?"
Reading this photograph through the framework of Roland Barthes’s notion of the photographer as an “agent of death,” the declaration, “I am a killer,” invites a contemporary viewer to comfortably insert a critical filter over the documentary impulse. As our eyes have been trained to focus on the subjectivity of the author/director/photographer rather than the subject portrayed in the image, not to mention the tendency to associate photography with an inherent sense of violent consumption, this statement draws attention to the fluid nature of meaning in the interpretation and construction of photographs.
“Am I a killer?” Posing this question not only to the photographer but also to the viewer, this exhibition addresses photography’s oft-cited relationship with death. Adopting a range of approaches—from visualizing the abstraction of photographic processes to manipulating the surface of the photograph—I Am I A Killer features works by Phil Chang, Sarah Conaway, Nancy de Holl, Alyssa Gorelick, Nicholas Grider, Ronni Kimm, Helen Levitt, Arthur Ou, and Max Warsh. Using Levitt’s photograph as a point of departure, this exhibition investigates whether the condition of the “agent of death” is inextricably bound to the making of photographs, the act of looking at photographs, or if there is a distinctly separate set of questions and concerns that photographs embody today.
Sam Lee Gallery is located at 990 North Hill Street #190, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Phone 323-227-0275, Facsimile 323-227-0256. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 6 pm and by appointment. For detailed information, please visit the gallery’s website, www.samleegallery.com.