Thomas Dozol's new series All Together Now will be on view at NP Contemporary Art Center from 3 FEBRUARY through 6 MARCH, 2011.
Thomas Dozol’s latest work, All Together Now, springs from the artist’s own political frustration. In the current age of consensus, stunted by endless wars and constant but immediately disqualified public debate, Dozol was forced to accept his own inability to find a more optimistic alternative to the present political dialogue. In traveling through Europe in the summer of 2010, Dozol visited the outdoor complex of Wannsee in Berlin and the Cité Radieuse of Le Corbusier in Marseilles, two grand scale experiments of utopian socialist visions. Moved by the unblinking optimism of both projects, he was also inspired by the radicality of their aesthetics. While no Utopia was to be found, he could at least convey visually the yearning for one.
Aesthetic utopias are often regarded as forever compromised by either the overwhelming trajectory of totalitarian projects, or the commercial aestheticization of life. Dozol questioned this assumption while developing this series of layered photographs.
Utilizing these vocabularies of nude portraiture and geometric abstraction to create two sets of new images, Dozol then painstakingly combined them in the darkroom through double exposures on c-prints.
In many ways, the final images speak of promise and failure simultaneously.
As an attempt to construct or resurrect a visual language of utopian forms, All Together Now echoes as... perhaps a speculative pr, perhaps a poster printed without a catchphrase; but most certainly as a rally call for a yet unborn Utopia.
NP CAC . 131 Chrystie Street . NYC 10002 . www.npcac.org
view THOMAS DOZOL
Images from Dozol's opening at envoy enterprises for 'Entre Temps' in January 2010
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