Film by Eric Minh Swenson.
THE LA BREA MATRIX is a co-published project by The Lapis Press (Culver City, CA) and Schaden.com (Köln, Germany).
This multi-faceted and ambitious project invited six emerging German photographers to Los Angeles to
investigate the influence of Stephen Shore and New American Color Photography from the 1970s. The
cornerstone of the project is Stephen Shore’s now iconic photograph “La Brea Avenue and Beverly
Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, June 21, 1975”, this photograph, is seen as not just a literal intersection
but as a metaphoric intersection of the photographic dialog between America and Germany.
The genesis of this dialog dates to 1976 when Bernd and Hilla Becher acquired a print of the image
from Shore. When the Bechers returned to Germany, they began showing the photograph to their
students at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie. For years the Bechers promoted Shores’ work within the
Kunstakademie but to their early students (Höfer, Hütte and Struth) the La Brea image was the first
introduction to New American Color Photography. The La Brea image was also shown at Documenta 6
in Kassel, Germany in 1977 (again with the help of Bernd Becher) and was included in Sally
Eauclaire‘s watershed publication The New Color Photography in 1981. In 1979, Thomas Struth
following his studies with the Bechers, released a series of black and white photographs taken in
America, the project was called “Unconscious Places”, an obvious nod to Shore’s catalog “Uncommon
Places” (which includes the La Brea image).
The photographers who were chosen for THE LA BREA MATRIX had each reflected on New American
Color Photography with insightful and differing approaches in their work made prior to this project.
The six photographers are:
JENS LIEBCHEN (Berlin, born in 1970)
MAX REGENBERG (Köln, born in 1951)
OLIVER SIEBER (Düsseldorf, born in 1966)
OLAF UNVERZART (München, born in 1972)
ROBERT VOIT (München, born in 1969)
JANKO WOLTERSMANN (Hanover, born in 1967)
Between 2010 and 2011, two portfolios have been released under the moniker THE LA BREA MATRIX.
For more info on Eric Minh Swenson visit his website at thuvanarts.com. His art films can be seen at thuvanarts.com/take1
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