GRANT MUDFORD: Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award
21/03/2014.
[LA - California] USA 03-27/04/2014
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Exhibition. Grant Mudford: Building.
In April 2014, the Julius Shulman Institute at Woodbury University will present Grant Mudford: Building at the Woodbury University Hollywood Gallery (WUHO). The exhibition runs from Thursday, April 3 through Sunday, April 27. The exhibition focuses primarily on work Mudford completed in the 1970s, a series of compelling abstractions of commercial and industrial structures in Los Angeles.
Mudford is the 2014 recipient of the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award, which will be presented at an awards ceremony and public reception on Thursday, April 3. He joins illustrious past honorees Iwan Baan (2010), Richard Barnes (2011), Pedro E. Guererro (2012) and Catherine Opie (2013).
“Grant Mudford deconstructs the elemental components of architecture, transforming the rebar, concrete and stucco of ordinary building sites into poignant statements about frailty and strength,” says exhibition curator Michael Duncan. “He is the most accomplished photographer currently working in Los Angeles: a master of light and composition who changes the way we think about structure itself.”
CCAC under construction. Photography © Grant Mudford.
ABOUT THE JULIUS SHULMAN INSTITUTE.
The Julius Shulman Institute (JSI) promotes understanding and appreciation of photography of the built environment. Architectural photographer Julius Shulman founded the Institute at Woodbury University in 2005 spurred by his passion for education. His endowment supports students, career artists, and commercial photographers who encourage us to look at our physical environment from a unique and critical perspective. In pursuit of this mission, we offer public programming, including exhibitions, workshops and symposia, disseminate information through publication and diverse media, support scholarship, and award excellence.
Each year we present the prestigious Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award to an early or mid-career artist who honors Shulman’s legacy and our mission by challenging the way we look at physical space. Awardees include Iwan Baan (2010), Richard Barnes (2011), Pedro E. Guerrero (2012), and Catherine Opie (2013). Our 2014 award will be presented to Grant Mudford. As part of our ongoing effort to reach out to the art and architecture community, we team with curators including Karen Higa (Japanese National American Museum) and Eve Schillo (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), who help develop exhibitions and forge connections between Woodbury University and the public. These exhibitions have garnered extensive attention in the national and international press.
Grant Mudford lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1944. After studying architecture at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, he started a commercial photography studio in that city. From his studio, Mudford did shoots for advertising, fashion, magazine editorial and theater, as well as numerous short films. From 1974-1977, he travelled widely in the United States, under the auspices of a Visual Arts Board Travel Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. At this time, he settled in Los Angeles. In the ensuing years, Mudford has undertaken editorial assignments for numerous publications, including Architectural Record, Esquire, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Progressive Architecture, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and Architecture. He has also participated in more than three-dozen solo and group exhibitions from 1974 to the present.
Regularly providing advice to many in the LA photographic and artistic communities, Mudford is a technical guru, known particularly for his command of point light source printing. As a commercial photographer, he has extensively documented structures by some of the most accomplished American architects including Louis Kahn, Frank Gehry, Rudolph Schindler, Craig Ellwood, and Frank Israel. Embracing both an architect’s overall vision and the subtlety of structural detail, Mudford treats architecture as something made to enhance the eye and the mind. Underlining the classical appeal of correct proportion and line, his photographs analyze the relationships of geometry, demonstrating how shapes and lines define the way we live. Conveying the essence of a building through choice detail, Mudford is a master interpreter of architectural space and light.