travel pictures

(image from Hammer Projects)

Another interesting installation in the Whitney Biennial was Walead Beshty's Travel Pictures. These are large photographs of the former Iraqi embassy to the DDR, now abandoned. An embassy from a former country to a former country. The images were made with film that had been accidentally x-rayed by airport security. The x-rays exposed the film so that the images made in the camera were double exposures. The x-rays are not "of" anything, but change the density and color of the film. The images are thin and washed out, the color strangely bleached.

(image from wallspace gallery)

Shown with the photographs are accidental glass sculptures--travel sculptures perhaps, though I do not think that is what they are called.
(image from Hammer Projects, photo by Joshua White)

The artist makes boxes out of safety glass sized to fit into Fedex boxes. The boxes travel from exhibit to exhibit, cracking and breaking more along the way into beautiful random sculptural objects. The title information included the tracking numbers and shipping points.

SSCC 139751 REV 10/05 "FedEx® Large Box", Priority Overnight (Los Angeles-Chicago trk#837549197959, Chicago-New York trk#865651051269), 2007
FedEx large box, double laminated safety glass, accrued FedEx tracking labels and metal installation variable (shipping size 17.875x12.375x3 inches (45.4x31.4x7.6 cm))
17.854" x 12.375" x 3" (image from whitney art party)

(all images used without permission, but with the best of intentions!)