Amir Zaki: "Relics"

January 7, 2010—February 20, 2010 | Reception Thursday, January 7th, 6-8PM

James Harris Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Amir Zaki. The artist has been working as a photographer for more than fifteen years, showing work from New York to Los Angeles to Seattle. This is his fourth solo exhibit at James Harris Gallery. For this exhibition, Zaki shows a series of color-saturated lifeguard towers that have been digitally manipulated to render them more iconic than real.

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"Untitled (tower 30)" 2009
"Untitled (tower 6)" 2009
"Untitled (tower 9)" 2009
"Untitled (tower 18), 2009
"Untitled (tower 19)" 2009
"Untitled (tower 38)" 2009
"Untitled (tower 42), 2009
"Untitled (tower 43)" 2009
"VW Vanagon Dawn Dusk, Dusk Dawn" 2009

Amir Zaki

A firm believer in the transformative power of the photographic image, Zaki images are rooted in the history of the medium and uses it to shed light on the means of representation. Over the last 16 years, Zaki has pushed the physicality of the photograph’s two dimensional construct, allowing it to exist on its own and also exploring its own object-ness. In order to capture and record the original site, Zaki’s representations depict the complexity of place in terms of interactive evolving experience, an ongoing ecological intervention. The artist responds to the shifting contemporary landscape where nothing is permanent, constructing his own visual language to illustrate an entire mythology of place.

Amir Zaki lives and works in Southern California. He received his MFA from UCLA in 1999 and has been exhibiting nationally and internationally since graduating. He is a full professor at the University of California at Riverside. His work is included in many museum collections including the Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.