Susan Lipper
Susan Lipper (born 1953) is an American photographer, based in New York City.[1][2] Her books include Grapevine (1994), for which she is best known, Trip (2000) and Domesticated Land (2018).[3] Lipper has said that all of her work is "subjective documentary";[4] the critic Gerry Badger has said many describe it as "ominous".[3]
Lipper had a solo exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery, London in 1994[5] and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015.[6] Her work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art[1] and New York Public Library in New York City,[7] Minneapolis Institute of Art,[8] Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,[9] and the National Portrait Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum in London.[10][11]
Early life and education
[edit]Lipper was born and raised in New York City. She studied English Romantic poetry in college with a concentration on W. B. Yeats.[12] She received an MFA in photography from Yale University in 1983.[13]
Life and work
[edit]Lipper uses a medium format camera, a Hasselblad, sometimes with attached flash.[14][15]
Lipper's first book, Innocence & the Birth of Jealousy (1974), combines photography and poetry. According to David Solo writing in The PhotoBook Review, the book "offers a single, tightly integrated meditation on narcissism and its effects on relationships." Lipper appears in a set of dance-like poses, photographed by Penny Slinger, while Lipper was studying English literature in London. "When Lipper reviewed the contact sheets, the idea of the sequence/story emerged, and she wrote the accompanying narrative poem". The book was published by Martin Booth under his Omphalos imprint.[16]
After returning to the United States, Lipper developed her more recognized style, as seen in the book trilogy Grapevine (1994), Trip (2004), and Domesticated Land (2018).[16]
For about 20 years she has been visiting and photographing a tiny community in Grapevine Hollow in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, eastern United States.[4][17] The photographs she made there between 1988 and 1994, in collaboration with her subjects the residents, became Grapevine.[4][3] The critic Gerry Badger has written that "Community, family, and gender relationships seem to be at the core of her investigation."[3] Lipper's collaborative approach distinguishes Grapevine from social documentary photography;[3] she describes it as "subjective documentary" and that "we were creating fictional images together [. . .] they knew the narratives I was playing around with as well as I did."[4] Izabela Radwanska Zhang wrote in the British Journal of Photography that it "challenges our belief in images labelled 'photojournalism', by interweaving a theatrical element. Lipper asked her models to assume characters that could essentially be them in the images; the result is a slippery, mysterious work."[18]
Trip, made between 1993 and 1999, paired photographs of urban landscapes and interiors with writing by Frederick Barthelme.[3][19][20] Domesticated Land was made between 2012 and 2016 in the California desert.[2][19]
Publications
[edit]Books of work by Lipper
[edit]- Innocence & the Birth of Jealousy. Rushden, UK: Omphalos, 1974.[16]
- Grapevine: Photographs by Susan Lipper. Manchester, UK: Cornerhouse, 1994. ISBN 0948797134.
- Limited edition. New York: powerHouse, 1997. ISBN 1576870235.
- Trip. Photographs by Lipper with accompanying short texts by Frederick Barthelme.
- Stockport, UK: Dewi Lewis, 2000. ISBN 1899235523.
- Brooklyn, New York: powerHouse, 2000. ISBN 1576870510.
- Bed and Breakfast. Country life 4. Maidstone, UK: Photoworks, 2000. ISBN 9780951742730. Edited by Val Williams. With an essay by David Chandler. Edition of 1000 copies.
- Domesticated Land. London: Mack, 2018. ISBN 9781912339037.
Books with contributions by Lipper
[edit]- How We Are: Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present. Edited by Val Williams and Susan Bright. London: Tate, 2007. ISBN 978-1-85437-714-2.
Exhibitions
[edit]Solo exhibitions
[edit]- Grapevine Hollow, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 1994[5]
Exhibitions with one other
[edit]- Arnolfini, Bristol, UK, 1997. With Michael B. Platt.[21]
Group exhibitions
[edit]- Who's Looking at the Family, Barbican Centre, London, May–September 1994[22]
Awards
[edit]Collections
[edit]Lipper's work is held in the following permanent collections:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City: 2 prints (as of 11 April 2023)[1]
- Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota: 1 print (as of 30 August 2021)[8]
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles: 5 prints (as of 11 April 2023)[9]
- National Portrait Gallery, London: 4 prints[11]
- New York Public Library, New York City[7]
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London: 7 prints (as of 30 August 2021)[10]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Search the Collection". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
- ^ a b "Photographers whose work I like - No31/ Susan Lipper". Harvey Benge, 28 June 2016. Accessed 26 March 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f Gerry Badger (2010). "Far from New York City: The Grapevine Work of Susan Lipper". The Pleasures of Good Photographs. Aperture Foundation. pp. 166–178. ISBN 978-1-59711-139-3.
- ^ a b c d O'Hagan, Sean (13 October 2010). "Interview: 'The mystery is enough': Susan Lipper on the Grapevine series". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^ a b https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Prog_Exhibition_List_1971%20to%202023.pdf
- ^ a b "Susan Lipper". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^ a b "Photographers in The New York Public Library's Photography Collection". New York Public Library. Accessed 26 March 2018.
- ^ a b "artist:"Susan Lipper"". Minneapolis Institute of Art. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
- ^ a b "Susan Lipper". www.moca.org. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
- ^ a b "Search Results". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
- ^ a b "Susan Lipper (1953-), Photographer". National Portrait Gallery, London. Accessed 25 March 2018.
- ^ "Susan Lipper". www.susanlipper.com. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
- ^ Tara, Wray (25 March 2016). "Doin' Work, Flash Interviews With Contemporary Photographers: Susan Lipper". HuffPost. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^ Susan Harris-Edwards, "Grapevine: Photographs by Susan Lipper". History of Photography, Vol. 19, no. 2 (1995) 180–81. Accessed 26 March 2018.
- ^ Susan Lipper, "ICP Lecture Series 2010: Susan Lipper Grapevine: Photographs by Susan Lipper". International Center of Photography. Accessed 26 March 2018.
- ^ a b c Solo, David. "Innocence & the Birth of Jealousy: David Solo on Susan Lipper". The PhotoBook Review (16). Aperture: 13.
- ^ Hilton, Tim (6 February 1994). "Exhibitions / If you go down to the woods today: Susan Lipper's sympathetic photographs show a society in decline. Candida Hofer's go even further, taking the people out altogether". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^ "Festival: Krakow Photomonth". British Journal of Photography. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
- ^ a b Domesticated Land by Susan Lipper.
- ^ "Susan Lipper". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
- ^ "Michael Platt & Susan Lipper". Arnolfini. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
- ^ "Exhibitions/ Mann's family and other animals: All human life isn't". The Independent. 1994-05-28. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
External links
[edit]- Official website
- "ICP Lecture Series 2010: Susan Lipper" (video) – Lipper describes her career
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