John Pilson

Interregna/ Origami

Gelatin silver print,made by the artist,in folder, with book
Sheet size 27.80 x 35.50 cm
Image size 25.20 x 30.60 cm
Signed and numbered
Edition of 25 + 5 AP


Pilson began his artistic career with portrait photographs taken in front of the uniform gray of Manhattan’s offices. He continued to investigate this thematic field in his short films, which feature office workers in their required business suits as they break through the strict humdrum of cubicle life with absurd, humorous acts — for instance, by using the short cubicle walls as athletic equipment, thus individualizing the space and at the same time, alienating it from its original purpose. Interregna is a book of photographs also devoted to the tristesse of the office sphere, in which Pilson depicts the odd, temporary world created in the administrative districts late in the evening or on weekends.

This group of works is taken from our publication. Here, too, a mere detail of an apparently randomly selected section of an office environment — which is nevertheless an extremely balanced composition — shows that there is life here, and that people are creative: a small origami crane sits on a storage box and waits in vain for the moment in which it will be carried away on the breeze.
John Pilson (*1968 in New York) lives and works in New York. 1993 M.F.A. Yale University. Many group and solo exhibitions of his photographs and videos in the USA and Europe since 1994. Participated in the 2001 Venice Biennial, where he was the recipient