2007-09 Stephenson, David Artforum.com Review 238 words
From 1993 to 2003, David Stephenson, an American photographer based in Australia, documented the recondite geometry of the interiors of cupolas at religious buildings and palaces throughout Europe. In 2004, this gallery exhibited a healthy selection of the often-symmetrical square-format prints, which boggled the mind despite their visually apparent ordering logic. In this exhibition, Stephenson presents recent work that fruitfully expands on the earlier series, combining images of naves, apses, and crossings into diptychs and triptychs that more fully explore the Gothic architecture of cathedrals in northern Europe. What is most striking about these images, beyond their variety and majesty, is also what sets these buildings apart from most constructed in our era: the visibility of their structure's armature. In each image, a fretwork of arches runs the length of the ceiling, creating a hyperelegant drawing in space that likewise serves to ensure the building's stability. It is difficult to choose favorites from a series so conceptually straightforward and well executed, yet the twin clouds of light that appear to hover just inside the central windows depicted in #50405, Chartres Cathedral, 2006/2007, set that work apart. One can't help but see what is likely to be overexposed film as a hint of spiritual apparition. Likewise, Stephenson's two-panel photograph of the ceiling at Paris's Saint-Chappelle is one of few to translate the delirious majesty of encountering its intricate stained-glass windows after passing through its dim, low-ceilinged entrance hall.


David Stephenson
#50109, Paris, Sainte-Chappelle Apse / #50111, Paris, Sainte-Chappelle Nave
2006/2007
two chromogenic prints mounted on museum board
each 28 x 28 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery, New York