TOM SANDBERG: PHOTOGRAPHS 1989 – 2006
February 11, 2007 – May 7, 2007
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Norwegian photographer Tom Sandberg in the United States. The presentation features more than thirty photographs taken over the past decade, including the premiere of several new works. Tom Sandberg is on view in the Second Floor Main Gallery from February 11 through May 7, 2007.
Working for almost thirty years, exclusively with large format, black-and-white film, Sandberg has produced a remarkable body of work that is consistent in its vision and imbued with a sense of mystery and great depth of feeling. Whether he depicts sublime snow-covered mountains, a car parked in the street, the head of an infant, or a spectral house shrouded in fog, his pictures are about what it means to be alive.
Many of Sandberg’s pictures are aerial views—the earth seen from above, in a sense, in a state of suspension. One of his most hauntingly beautiful pictures is an image of a plane seeming to hover just a few feet above a runway. He returns time and again to pictures of the sun, the ocean, endless clouds, and the horizon. In some the image is barely visible, as if testing the limits of what the eye can see. Sandberg’s work is about photography, about the act of seeing, and ultimately about being in the world.
Tom Sandberg (b. 1953) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. He has been included in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the United States over the last three decades, including The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf; Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; International Center of Photography, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Sandberg’s work is included in the permanent collections of The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; among others.
This exhibition, organized by P.S.1 Curatorial Advisor Bob Nickas, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
Tom Sandberg: Photographs 1989 – 2006 is supported by the Office for
Contemporary Art Norway and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway.
Additional funding provided by the Consul General, Royal Norwegian
Consulate General, NY and The American-Scandinavian Foundation.