Photography has a complex relationship with the truth. “The camera is a machine designed to accurately capture the real world in fine detail,” writes juror Richard McCabe in a statement. Yet since its invention in the 1800s, photographers have found ways to manipulate the camera’s ability to capture reality through optical tricks, darkroom processes, staged scenery, and other means. Today, thanks to software programs such as Photoshop, Lightroom, and Instagram, “the tools available for photographers to undermine the inherent truth of the photographic image are seemingly endless.”
The Lies exhibition features the work of ten contemporary photographers whose practices address the idea of truth in photography. With their cameras and computers, these photographers create work that blurs the lines between the real and unreal, fact and fiction, myth and reality. Rejecting a straight modernist approach to photography, this collection of image-makers push the boundaries of photographic purity by creating photographs that challenge the camera’s ability to objectively render reality. Lies is a timely exhibition that explores the camera’s changing role in an age where the validity of almost every photograph is in question.
Richard McCabe, Curator of Photography, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans
The theme resonates on a broader scale as well, said CPAC Executive Director Samantha Johnston. “With claims of fake news and polarizing viewpoints shaping our current culture, we thought it would be a fascinating time to invite artists from across the United States to explore this theme and the effects of misinformation on society,” she said.
Lies
Aug 31 – Oct 6, 2018.
Colorado Photographic Arts Center
1070 Bannock St., Denver CO 80204
