AQUARIUM
Black & white photographs by Diane Cook
Color photographs by Len Jenshel
October 5 – 28, 2000
For the past fifty years, our work has been involved with the appearance and perception of landscape, most notably that juncture between nature and culture. This project, photographs from the world of public aquariums, is concerned with a topography of fantasy and artifice. Aperture published a book of this work, entitled, “Aquarium” in 2003.
These aquatic displays provide us with a window into a mysterious world of wonderment that we would not normally encounter in our everyday lives. We are particularly fascinated not only by the human need to collect and contain, but also the impulse to provocatively package nature.
We are also intrigued by boundaries. First, the literal one of Plexiglas that separates the awe and drama and terror of their side, from the security and comfort of ours. Second, a metaphorical boundary where glass is curtain, aquarium is theater, and the drama is acted out on both stages. Third, and perhaps most important to us – is the blurring of the boundaries between the real, the unreal, and the ideal.
As photographers, we work intuitively, stay attuned to possibilities, and collaborate with chance. In addition, we collaborate with each another. But what sets our collaboration apart from most others is that one vision is color, while the other is black & white. This counterpoint produces a unique dialogue – sometimes harmonious, sometimes jarring, and often humorous – but one that accentuates the contrasts between description and abstraction, reality and artifice, fact and science fiction.
Diane Cook and Len Jenshel are two of America’s foremost landscape photographers, exploring beauty, boundary and the control of nature for over 50 years. They were married in 1983, and began collaborating in 1991.
In the fine arts, they have received numerous fellowships including the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, three grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Design Trust for Public Space, and two grants from the National Geographic Society.
Their monographs include Travels in the American West (Smithsonian, 1992), Hot Spots: America’s Volcanic Landscape (Bulfinch Press, 1996), Aquarium (Aperture, 2003), and their latest book, Wise Trees (Abrams, 2017).
Their photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries in over fifty one-person shows – including the Yokohama Museum in Tokyo, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the International Center of Photography in New York City, to name a few. Their work is represented in over one hundred museums and major collections worldwide. They have been represented in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; George Eastman House, Rochester; ICP, New York; National Museum, Smithsonian, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, to name just a few.
In the magazine world, their work has been published in numerous domestic and international publications, including National Geographic Magazine, The New Yorker, Harpers, The New York Times Magazine, Washington Post Magazine, Audubon, Fortune, Bloomberg, Forbes, National Geographic Traveler, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Sophisticated Traveler, Esquire, and many others.
Len and Diane reside in New York City.