James Welling

born 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut
lives and works in New York City, New York
read inGerman
James Welling studied at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh and received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. He was Professor of Fine Art at Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York, as well as at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts. He has been a professor at the Department of Art, University of California, Los Angeles, since 1995 and a guest professor at the Princeton University, New Jersey, since 2014.
 
Over the course of more than four decades, James Welling has been taking the conditions and pictorial practice of photography to task. His oeuvre is based on analysis and self-reflection as well as on complex production processes, the results of which are often experimental creations. Welling uses ordinary analog or digital photographic methods, with or without a camera, often in combination. His representational, quasi documentary series of works in the tradition of the classic art photograph emerge parallel to abstract photograms and computer-generated images. Welling is interested in modulations of light and shadow as well as the factor of time. He has never regarded a photograph as just a straightforward or simple record of what we see. Rather, it is literally translated “light-writing,” an inscription of light that obeys the laws of physics alone and is organized and put to (chromogenic) paper by the artist.
 
James Welling participated in the documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, in 1992 and the Whitney Biennial, New York City, New York, in 2008. In 2000, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio organized a major survey of his work, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.
 
The Kunstforum Bank Austia in Vienna has shown Welling's body of works which previously has been seen at the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Netherlands.
 
Selected solo exhibitions: Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (2015); Art Institute of Chicago (2014); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2013); Cincinnati Art Museum (2013); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013); Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2013); The Wardsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (2012); MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, Great Britain (2012); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2012); The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2010); Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York (2006); Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium (2002); Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany (1999); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland (1998); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (1998); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (1994); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (1990)
 
The artist's work is represented in major museum collections, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; MoMA, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; Vancouver Art Gallery; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Selected Works

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James Welling, # 11(Degradé), 2001 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
# 11(Degradé), 2001
photogram behind plexiglass (Diasec); unique
61 x 51 cm (24 x 20 in.), framed 71 x 63 cm (28 x 25 in.)
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James Welling, # 5 (Degradé), 2001 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
# 5 (Degradé), 2001
photogram behind plexiglass (Diasec); unique
61 x 51 cm (24 x 20 in.), framed 71 x 63 cm (28 x 25 in.)
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James Welling, # 6 (New Abstraction), 2000 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
# 6 (New Abstraction), 2000
Gelatin silver print, ed. 2/3
89 x 67 cm (35 x 26 3/8 in.), framed 142,5 x 107 cm (56 x 42 in.)
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James Welling, Glacier, 2003 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
Glacier, 2003
C-Print, ed. 2/3
70 x 90 cm (27 1/2 x 35 1/2 in.), framed 107 x 142,5 cm (42 1/8 x 65 1/8 in.)
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James Welling, Fence, Ocean Park, 2003 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
Fence, Ocean Park, 2003
Gelatin silver print, ed. 4/10
50 x 60 cm (19 5/8 x 23 5/8 in.), framed 65 x 95 cm (25 1/2 x 37 3/8 in.)
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James Welling, Sky, 1996 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
Sky, 1996
Iris-Print, ed. 5/6
83,5 x 68 cm (32 7/8 x 26 3/4 in.), framed 156 x 97 cm (61 1/2 x 38 in.)
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James Welling, Louisianne, 1998 — Galerie nächst St. Stephan
James Welling
Louisianne, 1998
Iris-Print, ed. 3/6
88,5 x 68 cm (34 3/4 x 26 3/4 in.), framed 157 x 97,5 cm (61 3/4 x 38 3/8 in.)
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Public Exhibitions

Gallery Exhibitions

Group Exhibition
17 Mar – 24 Apr 1999

THOMAS STRUTH
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO
JAMES WELLING

Grünangergasse 1
1010 Vienna
Exhibition
23 Sept – 21 Nov 1998

James Welling

Grünangergasse 1
1010 Vienna
Group Exhibition
24 Mar – 30 Apr 1994

Gaylen Gerber
Angela Grauerholz
James Welling

Grünangergasse 1
1010 Vienna
Exhibition
29 Apr – 27 May 1989

James Welling

Grünangergasse 1
1010 Vienna
Group Exhibition
23 Oct – 17 Nov 1987

FotografienClegg & Guttman, Richard Prince, James Welling, Heiner Blum

Grünangergasse 1
1010 Vienna

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