Thursday, January 3, 2008

Lucinda Devlin



Ha. I love Jim Johnson's blog - I think about Lucinda Devlin today (after finally seeing her work in the flesh at the Wadworth Atheneum's 'again:serial practices in contemporary art' show last month) and there she is, the most recent post on Politics, Theory and Photography. From the first time I saw them, I was transfixed by the jewel-like colours of her photographs, morbidly fascinated and then uncomfortable, and then left drained. Necessary photographs.

Between 1991 and 1998 Lucinda Devlin photographed in penitentiaries in twenty states, with the permission and cooperation of the local authorities. She called the resulting series The Omega Suites, alluding to the final letter of the Greek alphabet as a metaphor for the finality of execution. Devlin expresses an interest in "let[ting] the environments themselves communicate directly with viewers."