David Maisel

Month of Photography Lecture: David Maisel
Saturday, February 28, 2015

7:00pm, Sharp Auditorium, Denver Art Museum


Month of Photography Lecture: David Maisel

Saturday, February 28, 2015 - 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Hamilton Building - Lower Level
Ticketed with member discount. Purchase tickets online or call 720-913-0130.
 David Maisel is notable for photographing the unseen and the unseeable. Both in his landscapes and in his recent work with objects, he entices the viewer through the use of abstraction and unreal color.

Maisel’s photographs reveal a fascination with society’s mark on the terrain. He utilizes the aerial view to make clear the aesthetics of entropy by highlighting disjunctions between human and geologic time. Through framing, condensing space, and removing contextual references of foreground and background, he places emphasis on the forms and colors of water and earth that are the environmental consequence of industrializing nature.

While Maisel’s work is rooted in photography’s tradition of recording, the monumental scale and presentation of his prints also draw upon the language of abstract painting. Despite this visual correspondence, the work acts equally as a subversion of modernism as the inherent beauty of the often-horrific situations raises questions regarding the power of the sublime.

David Maisel was born in New York City in 1961 and lives and works in Sausalito, CA. A survey of his work, Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime, traveled to institutions including the CU Art Museum and University of New Mexico Art Museum in 2013-14. An associated monograph was released by Steidl in 2013.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 students with ID, $10 for DAM members and CPAC members, $15 general admission: https://tickets.denverartmuseum.org/selection.aspx?item=1208
For additional details, e-mail photography@denverartmuseum.org.
Sponsored by the DAM Photography Department with support from the Cooke Daniels Fund.

Image credit: David Maisel, The Lake Project 1, 2001. 2015.543; Denver Art Museum: A. E. Manley Photography Collection. © David Maisel.