Relics
January 2 – February 1, 2009
Relics began with my interest in land art and ready-made sculpture. Forgotten and still functioning structures transform into sculptures that integrate the object and the landscape. The objects suggest cultural evidence without any direct link to a time or a place and take on their own existence.
After stepping away from this work, I realized that these pictures were also about my own mortality, and that what is left behind defines who we were.
Brad Temkin’s (American, 1956) work is held in numerous permanent collections, including those of The Art Institute of Chicago; Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Amon Carter Museum; Eastman Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. His images have appeared in such publications as Aperture, Black & White Magazine, TIME Magazine and European Photography. He has numerous grants and fellowships including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in 2007 and 2024. Temkin has published 3 books: Private Places: Photographs of Chicago Gardens (Center for American Places) 2005; Rooftop (Radius Books) 2015; and The State Of Water (Radius Books) 2019. He has taught at Columbia College Chicago since 1984.