FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Luisa Lambri
Photographs

April 8 – 29, 2006

Luhring Augustine is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Italian photographer Luisa Lambri. This will be the first solo exhibition of her work in New York and will feature photographs of iconic buildings by Modernist architects such as Luis Barragan, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.

Luisa Lambri's ephemeral photographs stand in clear contrast to the established practice of architectural photography which has traditionally focused attention on the exteriors of the buildings. Her unique approach to the subject is the investigation and documentation of the structures from within, interpreting the atmosphere of the space. She primarily photographs private houses, focusing on the view from the inside to the outside thereby establishing a physical and conceptual position for herself and the viewer. These delicately crafted images oscillate between objective representations of space and Lambri's perceptions and reactions. The work realizes its full meaning when it is installed in a new space and in so doing establishes a new relationship between the viewer, the object and the space.

Lambri utilizes traditional as well as new digital printing techniques to move her photographs beyond pure documentation. Her photographs of Luis Barragan's house in Mexico City are a study of one window in which the changing position of the shutters dramatically affects the conditions of light. The photographs reference minimalism and abstract painting, evoking moments of transcendence. Similarly, her studies of the diamond shaped windows of Konstantin Melnikov's house in Moscow, built 1927-29, are investigations of the temporally sublime. In making these images she is careful not to affect the space with her presence, allowing the evidence of the structure's history to come to the fore. Working in Edward Durell Stone's historic 1935 Mandel House in Bedford Hills, New York, Lambri explores the space via the various mirrors hung throughout the house. Like the camera and the window, mirrors signify an aperture, one which envelopes the viewer by way of reflection. Lambri's selective framing and editing of the images pay homage to the Modernist aesthetic and establish an atmosphere that transcends the immediate function of the structures.

Luisa Lambri was born in Como, Italy, in 1969; she currently lives in Milan and travels extensively to make her pictures. Her work has been included in two Venice Biennales, 1999 and 2003 and in Living Inside the Grid at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York in 2003. More recently her work has been seen in The Fluidity of Time: Selections from the MCA Collection, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She had a solo exhibition at The Menil Collection in Houston in 2004 and will have a one-person exhibition at The Baltimore Museum of Art in 2007 and at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 2008.

For more information, please contact Natalia Mager Sacasa at 212.206.9100 or natalia@luhringaugustine.com.