Grid Work V - Limited Edition of 1/5 - Print

There is a two inch border in the print size. Excerpt from The Alberta Foundation For The Arts TRAVELING EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2018-2019 "Christian Grandjean is an accomplished photographer who studied his craft in Paris and London. He currently resides in Calgary, Alberta. His first exhibition took place in London (UK) in 1979, and since then he has exhibited his photographs throughout Europe and North America. His photographs depicting urban environments are in many collections, including the London Borough of Tower and the Leicestershire Collection in England and the Nickle Arts Museum in Calgary. Grandjean also has a long history of printmaking. Coupled with his photography, Grandjean has expressed a love for urban environments and he idealizes city grids and their clarity of form. VISUAL ANALYSIS While Minimalism, Op Art and Color Field painting dominated visua art practices during the mid-20th century, in architecture it was the skyscraper that came to epitomize modernity. Stripped of any superfluous detail and ornamentation, both the exterior and interior of these buildings adhered to a grid pattern. The repetitive modular arrangement of windows visible from the exterior mirror the carefully organized cubicles and offices within. At the time, it was believed that this arrangement would lead to a more productive workforce, based on the principles of mass production and efficiency. The flooding of light and the transparency of materials from the extensive use of windows was intentional and was meant to symbolize enlightenment. In Grandjean’s photographs, Calgary #1 (2008) and Calgary #4 (2008), he captures these vestiges of the modern world found in so many cities today. Both photographs capture downtown Calgary skyscrapers and reveal the play of light across their reflective surfaces. Among the work selected for this exhibition, these are the only two pieces that possess figurative subjects; however, the way the artist crops the frame of his photographs and excludes the space surrounding the buildings, they appear almost as abstract paintings. The focus becomes the lighting effects on the gridlike pattern of the windows rather than the building itself. Shannon Bingeman Curator"