Opening Reception - "The Path of Darryl Curran: from the 1960s - the present (and the Origins of Conceptual Photography)"

Saturday, January 11th, 2020

Darryl J. Curran is one of the major conceptualists of Southern California photography, and this exhibition recognizes his place at the forefront of the movement. He introduced the word conceptualism to our vocabulary, allowing an intellectual type of reasoning to be included in our art making. Borrowing from current trends and developments, he offers further, affected associations with cultural icons. Curran’s artwork demonstrates seeing and vision, capturing the ideas in the process -- in the midst of their expression. He combines images and found pictures, presents relationships and memories, and creates juxtapositions that encourage reflection and ask consequential questions. As a result, his pieces are not only visually pleasing, but thought provoking and timeless as well. 

For the past fifty years Darryl Curran has sought to expand the definition of ‘photography’ to include experiments of the medium in its many forms, including camera and film, light as subject, camera-less image-making, obsolete photographic printing processes and scanner as camera. His work is about the act of discovery. “Creating photographs in this manner encourages inaccuracy and serendipity,” as Curran explains. His photographic tests explore both commercial and historical processes, as well as an unorthodox approach to image, size, color and content.