Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Jan Dibbets. Initially trained as a painter, in the 1960s Dibbets turned to photography, drawing on the rich tradition of Dutch painting, and its emphases on light, structure, and nature. Dibbets developed a painterly approach to photography, challenging the assumption that photography produces only objective reproductions of reality, and exploring the possibilities for a photograph as an art object. Dibbets went on to create photographic series such as “Perspective Corrections,” which explored the dichotomy between the illusion the camera creates and the reality that the eye sees, laying the foundation for what eventually became recognized as conceptual art. In the mid-seventies, Dibbets pushed the boundaries of the photographic medium even further, becoming the first artist to recognize large-scale color photography as a legitimate medium.

The exhibition on view at Gladstone Gallery will feature a recent series of Dibbets’ Colorstudies, large-scale works that depict detailed views of car hoods. The works have been created from Dibbets' original materials from the 1970s, using modern technology and contemporary techniques to better achieve what Dibbets originally envisioned for the Colorstudies works. Interested in the way a close-cropped view of an object can obscure its representational value, Dibbets often takes as his subject scenes from the everyday, including landscapes, windows, and automobiles, using mundane subject matter to create new modes of perspective and understanding. Exploring the element of abstraction inherent in reality, the Colorstudies depict fragments of the natural landscape reflected in the cars’ hoods, highlighting the way familiar objects can become obscured by the camera’s gaze. Cast in glossy, bright hues, the works reflect Dibbets’ interest in manipulating color to further question the relationship between representation and reality.

Jan Dibbets lives and works in Amsterdam. He has had solo exhibitions at major institutions, including: Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Miami Art Museum, Miami; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit; Fundacion Espai Poblenau, Barcelona; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany.