ON ICE
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEN JENSHEL AND DIANE COOK
at Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, CA
" Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven
That seemed as though ice burned and was but
more ice,
And thereupon imagination and heart were driven
So wild that every casual thought of this and that
Vanished."
W.B. Yeats, from The Cold Heaven
" In 1997, on a flight home from Europe, the clouds parted and from 35,00 feet we saw Greenland for the first time. This immense frozen island that we saw from on high was mesmerizing. A few months later we made our way back to Greenland and began photographing in an unfamiliar and treacherous landscape, but one, nonetheless, possessed with a disarming beauty.
One of the threads that runs through our various projects is photographing places of astonishment and wonder. We returned many times to the polar regions to work amongst the ice - in all its forms, from imposing cathedrals of ice to their shattered remains. Sadly, over the years, each successive trip has revealed an accelerated rate of melting. For us, this project is a meditation on beauty and impermanence, in the age of global warming. " -- Len Jenshel and Diane Cook.
Joseph Bellows Gallery presents ON ICE: Photographs by Len Jenshel and Diane Cook. The exhibition will be on view through February 13, 2010.
Diane Cook and Len Jenshel are two of America's foremost landscape photographers, interpreting culture and environment for over twenty-five years. They met in 1979, were married in 1983, and began collaborating in 1991 using a unique style of pairing black and white prints by Cook with color images by Jenshel. The photographers are drawn to photographing places of astonishment and wonder, and their series On Ice is a sumptuous look at Greenland's glaciers and icebergs.
In 1997, on a flight home from Europe, the clouds parted and from 35,000 feet Diane Cook and Len Jenshel saw Greenland for the first time. The immense frozen island that they saw from on high was mesmerizing. A few months later the photographers traveled to Greenland and began photographing in an unfamiliar and treacherous landscape, but one, nonetheless, possessed with a disarming beauty. Over the next few years they returned many times to the polar regions to photograph the icy landscape in all its forms, from imposing cathedrals of ice to their shattered remains. Each successive trip has revealed an accelerated rate of melting. The series On Ice is a meditation on beauty and impermanence in the age of climate change.
LEN JENSHEL is one of the pioneers of "The New Color," photographing landscape and culture since 1974. His books include Travels in the American West (Smithsonian, 1992), and Charmed Places (Abrams, 1988). He has received numerous grants including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts, two from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Graham Foundation, and the Design Trust for Public Space.
DIANE COOK had been photographing the complexity of landscape since her graduation from Rutgers University in 1976. Ms. Cook has been a recipient of two New York State Council on the Arts grants and a Photo Urbanism grant from the Design Trust for Public Space in 2002. Diane Cook and Len Jenshel have collaborated on two books - Hot Spots: America's Volcanic Landscape (Bulfinch Press, 1996) and Aquarium (Aperture, 2003 – Aquarium exhibition at the Kopeikin Gallery, West Hollywood, January 10 - February 8, 2004). Their work is in numerous public and private collections worldwide. They currently live and work in New York City.
ON ICE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEN JENSHEL AND DIANE COOK
December 12, 2009 - February 13, 2010
Joseph Bellows Gallery
7661 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, CA 92037
josephbellows.com
