Tom Sandberg in New York
Ambiguous surfaces that never quite reveal themselves and an acute visual economy characterize the work of Norwegian photographer, Tom Sandberg. lifeiscarbon® went along to P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York to see his first solo exhibition in the United States, an exhibition featuring more than thirty photographs taken over the past decade, including the premiere of several new works.
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 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 seem to convey a sense of what it means to be alive (see a small selection of his work below).
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 and Paris, France. 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.
TOM SANDBERG: PHOTOGRAPHS 1989 - 2006
February 11, 2007 - April 23, 2007
P.S.1 MOMA
22-25 Jackson Ave (Intersection of 46th Ave)
Long Island City,
New York, NY 11101.
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