Aquarium, Photographs by Diane Cooks and Len Jenshel
© Diane Cooks, Len Jenshel / Aperture, New York
The PAUL KOPEIKIN GALLERY presents AQUARIUM, an exhibition by acclaimed photographers LEN JENSHEL and DIANE COOK . This exhibition coincides with the publication of their book Aquarium published by Aperture books.
For the past quarter century Len Jenshel and Diane Cook have been involved with the appearance and perception of landscape, most notably the juncture between nature and culture. In the interior world of public aquariums their concerns shifted slightly to include the topography of the fantastic and the artificial. Aquatic displays provide the viewer with a window into a mysterious world of wonderment that we do not encounter in our daily lives. There is the fascination of the need for humans to collect and contain, but also the impulse to neatly package nature.
Len Jenshel and Diane Cook are intrigued by boundaries. There is, of course, the literal boundary of plexiglas that separates the pleasures and terrors on the inside of the tank from the security and comfort outside; at least that’s how we see it (a fish out of water may have a different point of view). There is also the metaphoric boundary where the glass is the curtain, the aquarium a theater and the drama is acted on both sides of the proscenium. The third boundary is the most important to the artists; the blurring of the boundaries between the real, the unreal, and the ideal.
As artists Len Jenshel and Diane Cook work intuitively, stay attuned to possibilities and collaborate with chance. In addition, they work with one another. But what sets their collaboration apart is that Jenshel’s vision is color while Cook’s is black and white. This counterpoint produces a unique dialogue; sometimes harmonious, sometimes jarring, and sometimes humorous. It’s a collaboration that accentuates the contrasts between description and abstraction, reality and artifice, truth and fiction.
Signed copies of Len Jenshel and Diane Cook's book, Aquarium, are available.
January 10 - February 8, 2004
Kopeikin Gallery
8810 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA. 90069
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