OCMA | Orange County Museum of Art

Los Angeles-based photographer Walead Beshty was born in London in 1976. Beshty earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College in 1999, and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art in 2002. He has been exhibited at P.S.1/MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, the Katonah Museum of Art, the Decordova Museum. He currently teaches in the Art Departments of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
Beshty?s ever developing practice is notable for its layers of meaning both in the image as well as through the actual development of the film. Using film damaged by airport security X-ray machines, the artist literally adds a whole new set of traces of form and meaning to his already layered images. The film shows the basic part of the photographic process after the chemical emulsion is changed after exposure to radiation. Beshty believed these photographs share a relationship with the social and political world. These photos represent the current social and political state of the world after the events of 9/11. Due to the post-9/11 security measures at airports, the photographs are literally altered. He believed these photos could be taken as a portrait of the current security regulations with traces of his travels implanted into the photograph. Since this strange discovery, Beshty has continued to use this method and experiment with different ways of exposing film.
Los Angeles-based photographer Walead Beshty was born in London in 1976. Beshty earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College in 1999, and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art in 2002. He has been exhibited at P.S.1/MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, the Katonah Museum of Art, the Decordova Museum. He currently teaches in the Art Departments of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
Beshty?s ever developing practice is notable for its layers of meaning both in the image as well as through the actual development of the film. Using film damaged by airport security X-ray machines, the artist literally adds a whole new set of traces of form and meaning to his already layered images. The film shows the basic part of the photographic process after the chemical emulsion is changed after exposure to radiation. Beshty believed these photographs share a relationship with the social and political world. These photos represent the current social and political state of the world after the events of 9/11. Due to the post-9/11 security measures at airports, the photographs are literally altered. He believed these photos could be taken as a portrait of the current security regulations with traces of his travels implanted into the photograph. Since this strange discovery, Beshty has continued to use this method and experiment with different ways of exposing film.
He also creates sculptural forms of his photographs. These sculptures represent his fascination ?both the idea of `photographic? indexicality and the strange non-spaces that populate the hyper-connected world that we inhabit.? He is particularly interested in shipping companies, specifically FedEx, and their efficiency and capability of delivering objects around the world. Beshty constructs glass vitrines that are the exact dimensions of a FedEx box, and he then places the glass boxes into a FedEx box and ships it to the exhibition site. The glass sculptures then show the wear and tear of its travels through ?space and time.? This cracked surface is supposed to represent a record of the sculpture?s ?hidden life? as though the sculpture were an exposure of a photograph. The FedEx boxes the sculpture is delivered in then becomes the base for the artwork. Beshty then gives the sculptures a title which consists of a record of the journey the box took to arrive at the exhibition. Beshty lives and works in Los Angeles.
He also creates sculptural forms of his photographs. These sculptures represent his fascination ?both the idea of `photographic? indexicality and the strange non-spaces that populate the hyper-connected world that we inhabit.? He is particularly interested in shipping companies, specifically FedEx, and their efficiency and capability of delivering objects around the world. Beshty constructs glass vitrines that are the exact dimensions of a FedEx box, and he then places the glass boxes into a FedEx box and ships it to the exhibition site. The glass sculptures then show the wear and tear of its travels through ?space and time.? This cracked surface is supposed to represent a record of the sculpture?s ?hidden life? as though the sculpture were an exposure of a photograph. The FedEx boxes the sculpture is delivered in then becomes the base for the artwork. Beshty then gives the sculptures a title which consists of a record of the journey the box took to arrive at the exhibition. Beshty lives and works in Los Angeles.