The Museum of Contemporary Art - Los Angeles
Jason Schmidt: Some Los Angeles Artists
November 18, 2012 - March 18, 2013
“Los Angeles—The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Jason Schmidt: Some Los Angeles Artists, now on view at MOCA Grand Avenue through March 18, 2013. Since 1997, photographer Jason Schmidt has been making intimate portraits of artists around the world as part of his ongoing project Artists. Selected from over 500 photographs that currently make up this series, the 23 images on view at MOCA represent several generations of artists working in an array of disciplines—painting, sculpture, video, performance, and installation—all of whom are based in Los Angeles. Schmidt photographs each artist in a place significant to each artist’s work. Unlike some other photographers of artists who work in series and record multiple images, Schmidt crystallizes his experience of the artists and their work into a single image. His ‘one shot’ approach results in some of the most iconic images of the leading artists of our time,’ said MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch.
Carting a Linhof 4x5 and Nikon cameras past warehouses and deserts, up and down several hundred flights of stairs, into living rooms and garages, next to beaches, canals, and pools (as well as in them), in fields and gardens, half-naked and barefoot, in cemeteries and next to stripper poles, Schmidt documents artists as they make their work. Both portraits and environments, each experience with an artist is singular—the resultant photograph is often a mixture of collaboration and on-the-spot inventiveness. Schmidt attempts to capture the artists in a concise, material way, given the restrictions that the studio or location provides. Schmidt never editorializes, fakes scenarios or concocts clever, telltale demonstrations; he never imposes his conception of what an artist should be doing, but simply documents the sudden moment where the photographer enters into the special domain of the artist.”
—Press Release, Jason Schmidt: Some Los Angeles Artists, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles