Connecticut HQ Art

Daniel Gordon is known for photography that employs appropriation and reproduction in order to question the nature of the image-object relationship. Melding optical illusion, pastiche, mixed media, and a recalibration of analog processes, he consciously reframes what it means to have a photographic practice.

Gordon’s process begins with sourcing found imagery—such as of a vase or a plant—from the internet or by taking pictures with an iPhone. Creating printouts of these images, he then cuts and pastes onto a three-dimensional structure that mimics the form and scale of the same vase or plant, thereby reconstructing the depicted object in paper. The resulting objects, seemingly improvised and crudely constructed, are actually meticulously fabricated. Gordon then arranges these stand-ins into various tableaux, which he photographs from a single, frontal vantage point. These photographs are comprised of disparate images that have been collapsed and recontextualized; modernist and classical references are remixed, with plants and vessels repeated within the images to create spatial architecture for his imagined scenes.

Gordon holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Yale School of Art, and he lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has exhibited widely, including at the Foam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; MoMA P.S. 1, Queens, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pier 24, San Francisco.

His work is included in prominent collections worldwide including Foam Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Pier 24, San Francisco; and the VandenBroek Foundation, Lisse, Netherlands.