Certain through-lines visible in Lisa Oppenheim’s work suggest the many ways the history of photography can be a lineage of impossibly wide potential for an artist whose practice is inseparable from her research. Using various means, including but not strictly limited to photography, Oppenheim draws upon the resources of libraries, collections, and online repositories that become a point of departure for work that is layered and at times starkly abstract. Reaching back into documentary archives, for example, Oppenheim examines the overlooked outtakes of great photographers that were, for whatever reason, excised from the historical record, resurrecting them in her imagery. These missing links and obscure finds have technical corollaries in her work as well. Her images often focus on fragments and play with exposures to suggest the nuances of what is seen and unseen, revealed and hidden, by the mechanics of the camera and chemistry of processing. In her multifaceted work, she can invoke photography’s most complex functions: the capacity to remain completely mute while seeming to describe the world in infinite detail.
- Darsie Alexander, 2021
Lisa Oppenheim (b. 1975, New York, USA) lives and works in New York, NY, USA.