Trevor Paglen
Trevor Paglen | |
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Born | 1974 |
Alma mater | |
Awards |
Trevor Paglen (born 1974) is an American artist, geographer, and author whose work tackles mass surveillance and data collection.[1][2]
Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said that Paglen, whose "ongoing grand project [is] the murky world of global state surveillance and the ethics of drone warfare", "is one of the most conceptually adventurous political artists working today, and has collaborated with scientists and human rights activists on his always ambitious multimedia projects."[2]
In 2016, he won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize[3] and he has also won The Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography.[4] In 2017, he was a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant.
Early life and education
Paglen earned a B.A.degree in religious studies in 1998 from the University of California at Berkeley, a M.F.A. degree in 2002 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography in 2008 from the University of California at Berkeley,[5] where he currently works as a researcher.
While at UC Berkeley, Paglen lived in the Berkeley Student Cooperative, residing in Chateau, Rochdale, Fenwick, and Convent co-ops.[citation needed]
Work
Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2015, said that Paglen, whose "ongoing grand project [is] the murky world of global state surveillance and the ethics of drone warfare", "is one of the most conceptually adventurous political artists working today, and has collaborated with scientists and human rights activists on his always ambitious multimedia projects."[2] His visual work such as his "Limit Telephotography" and "The Other Night Sky" series have received widespread attention for both his technical innovations and for his conceptual project that involves simultaneously making and negating documentary-style truth-claims.[6] The contrasts between secrecy and revelation, evidence and abstraction distinguish Paglen's work. With that the artist presents not so much "evidence" as admonitions to awareness.[7][8]
He was an Eyebeam Commissioned Artist in 2007.
In 2008 the Berkeley Art Museum devoted a comprehensive solo exhibition to his work. In the next year, Paglen took part in the Istanbul Biennial, and in 2010 he exhibited at the Vienna Secession.[9]
Paglen is featured in the nerd culture documentary, Traceroute (2016).
A mid-career survey in 2018–2019, Trevor Paglen: Sites Unseen, was a traveling exhibition shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.[10][11]
In September 2020, Pace Gallery in London held an exhibition of Trevor Paglen's work, exploring 'the weird, partial ways computers look back at us'.[12]
His work is included in various public museum collections, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,[13] Columbus Museum of Art,[14][15] among others.
Paglen lives and works in New York City.
Experimental Geography
Paglen is credited with coining the term "Experimental Geography" to describe practices coupling experimental cultural production and art-making with ideas from critical human geography about the production of space, materialism, and praxis. The 2009 book Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism is largely inspired by Paglen's work.[16]
Publications
Paglen has published a number of books. Torture Taxi (2006), (co-authored with investigative journalist Adam Clay Thompson) was the first book to comprehensively describe the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me (2007), is a look at the world of black projects through unit patches and memorabilia created for top-secret programs.[17] Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World (2009) is a broader look at secrecy in the United States.[18] The Last Pictures (2012) is a collection of 100 images to be placed on permanent media and launched into space on EchoStar XVI, as a repository available for future civilizations (alien or human) to find.[19]
Publications by Paglen
- I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2007. ISBN 1-933633-32-8.
- Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World. New York: Dutton, 2009. ISBN 9781101011492.
- Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes, Photographs by Trevor Paglen. New York: Aperture, 2010. ISBN 9781597111300. With an essay by Rebecca Solnit.
- The Last Pictures. Oakland, CA: University of California, 2012. ISBN 9780520275003.
- Trevor Paglen. London: Phaidon, 2018. ISBN 0714873446. With essays by Laren Cornell, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Omar Kholeif.
Publications co-authored
- Torture Taxi. Co-authored with Adam Clay Thompson. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-933633-09-3.
- Icon, 2007. ISBN 9781840468304.
Publications with contributions by Paglen
- Experimental Geography - Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2009. ISBN 978-0091636586. Edited by Nato Thompson. With essays by Paglen, Thompson, and Jeffrey Kastner.
- Trevor Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum - Autonomy Cube. Revolver, 2016. ISBN 978-3957633026. Essays by Luke Skrebowski and Keller Easterling on Autonomy Cube, a piece of sculpture by Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum. In English and German.
Exhibitions
Paglen has shown photography and other visual works.
- Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts[citation needed]
- Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art, Medzilaborce, Slovakia[citation needed]
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA[citation needed]
- Bellwether Gallery, New York, November–December 2006[20]
- The Other Night Sky, Berkeley Art Museum, 2008
- A Compendium of Secrets, Cologne
- Still Revolution: Suspended in Time, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, May–June 2009. Group exhibition with Paglen, Barbara Astman, Walead Beshty, Mat Collishaw, Stan Douglas, Idris Khan, Martha Rosler, and Mikhael Subotzky[21]
- A Hidden Landscape, Aksioma, Ljubljana, Slowenia
- Geographies of Seeing, Lighthouse, Brighton, England, October–November 2012[22][23][24][25]
- The Last Pictures, New York, 2012–13
- Trevor Paglen, Altman Siegel gallery, San Francisco, CA, March–May 2015[26][27]
- The Octopus, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main, 2015
- Autonomy Cube, Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg, Germany, October 2015 – January 2016. Sculpture by Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum.[28][29]
- Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2016, The Photographers' Gallery, London, April–July 2016. Deutsche Börse Photography Prize shortlist with Paglen, Erik Kessels, Laura El-Tantawy, and Tobias Zielony.[2]
- Radical Landscapes, di Rosa, Napa, February–April 2016[30]
- L’Image volée, Americas II, Bahamas Internet Cable System (BICS-1) and Globenet, Fondazione Prada, Milan (group exhibition), 2016[31]
- A Study of Invisible Images, Metro Pictures, New York, September–October 2017[32]
Awards
- 2014: Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[33]
- 2015: The Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography (DGPh)[4]
- 2015: Academy Award as cameraman and director for the documentary film Citzenfour.
- 2016: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize[3]
- 2017: MacArthur Fellow, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, IL[34]
- 2018: Nam June Paik Art Center Prize[35]
Works
-
Headquarters of the National Security Agency on Fort Meade, Maryland
-
Headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Springfield, Virginia
See also
Further reading
- Beckman, Karen (2007). "Telescopes, Transparency, and Torture: Trevor Paglen and the Politics of Exposure," Art Journal 66.3
- Belisle, Brooke (2014). “I See the Moon, The Moon Sees Me: Trevor Paglen’s Satellite Views," Media-N special issue on Art & Infrastructures: Hardware, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 2014).
- Belisle, Brooke "Artifacts: Trevor Paglen’s Frontier Photography" in Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life edited by Jamie Kruse and Elizabeth Ellsworth (New York: Punctum Books, 2012). ISBN 0615766366
- Gustafsson, Henrick (2013). "Foresight, Hindsight and State Secrecy in the American West: The Geopolitical Aesthetics of Trevor Paglen" in Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 12, 1: pp. 148-164.
- Lind, Maria (2016). "Center Stage: Trevor Paglen," Kaleidoscope 26.
- Perini, Julie (2010). "Art as Intervention: A Guide to Today's Radical Art Practices". In Team Colors Collective (ed.). Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States. AK Press. ISBN 9781849350167.
- Smudge Studio "The Uneven Time of Space Debris: An Interview with Trevor Paglen" in Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life edited by Jamie Kruse and Elizabeth Ellsworth (New York: Punctum Books, 2012). ISBN 0615766366
- Stallabrass, Julian (2011). "Negative Dialectics in the Google Era: A Conversation with Trevor Paglen," October 138.
- Thompson, Nato (ed). Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism (Melville House Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-09-163658-6
- Van Tome, Niels (2015). Visibility Machines: Harun Farocki and Trevor Paglen. ISBN 1890761192, 9781890761196
- Weiner, Jonah (2012). "Prying Eyes: Trevor Paglen Makes Art Out of Government Secrets," New Yorker, October 22, 2012.
References
- ^ Gamerman, Ellen (12 September 2013). "The Fine Art of Spying". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
- ^ a b c d O'Hagan, Sean (5 November 2015). "Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist: drones v the women of Tahrir". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
- ^ a b Violet Bramley, Ellie (5 November 2015). "Trevor Paglen's drone photography wins 2016 Deutsche Börse prize". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
- ^ a b "The Cultural Award of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh)". Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie e.V.. Accessed 7 March 2017.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen". MacArthur Foundation.
- ^ Keenan, Tom. "Disappearances: The Photographs of Trevor Paglen" Aperture, No. 191. Summer 2008
- ^ "6 November 2013". Süddeutsche Zeitung.
- ^ Greenberger, Alex (8 June 2016). "Trevor Paglen". ARTnews. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen, November 26, 2010 – February 13, 2011". Secession. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
- ^ Catlin, Roger. "This Artist Dwells in the Clandestine World of Classified Secrets and Surveillance". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2020-08-17.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen in Washington, D.C." Apollo Magazine. 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2020-08-17.
- ^ "Textures of Life, Death, and Data in Trevor Paglen's 'Bloom'". ocula.com. 2020-11-25. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen · SFMOMA".
- ^ "Columbus Museum of Art acquires Andy Warhol and Trevor Paglen works of art".
- ^ "Embark Collection". 2016-01-27.
- ^ Nato Thompson interview in The Nation
- ^ Logos offer a guide to secret military programs, International Herald Tribune, April 2, 2008.
- ^ Paglen, Trevor "Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World" New York: Dutton, 2009
- ^ "The Book".
- ^ Trevor Paglen show at Bellwether Gallery in 2006
- ^ "Still Revolution: Suspended in Time". Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
- ^ Trevor Paglen show at Lighthouse in 2012
- ^ "Geographies of Seeing".
- ^ "Trevor Paglen at Lighthouse in Brighton". Wired. 2012-10-07.
- ^ O'Hagan, Sean (16 August 2012). "Political, provocative, personal: photography to look forward to". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen | Altman Siegel".
- ^ Helfand, Glen (2015-03-13). "Trevor Paglen review: Turning the NSA's data combing into high-concept art". The Guardian.
- ^ http://www.edith-russ-haus.de/no_cache/en/exhibitions/exhibitions/archive.html?tx_kdvzerhapplications_pi4[exhibition]=198&tx_kdvzerhapplications_pi4[action]=show&tx_kdvzerhapplications_pi4[controller]=Exhibition
- ^ "The Artist Using Museums to Amplify Tor's Anonymity Network". Wired. April 2016.
- ^ "Radical Landscapes". January 2016.
- ^ "Nehmt ihnen die Bilder wieder weg!" Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung 20 March 2016: page 47.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen - Exhibitions - Metro Pictures".
- ^ "EFF Pioneer Awards 2014".
- ^ "Meet the 2017 MacArthur Fellows". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
- ^ "Trevor Paglen Wins 2018 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize".