James Coleman

That which is seen and the act of seeing have long been preoccupations of Irish-born artist James Coleman. Having rejected painting in the 1970s, Coleman turned to the reproductive media of video and film, as well as theater projects, but his preferred format remains photography displayed through large-scale slide projection. Extraordinarily precise, both pictorially and narratively, his audio visual works are reminiscent of scenes from daily life, film, and literature, offering tightly orchestrated social situations shot in in colorful, multiple fade-over stills accompanied by spoken text with a highly differentiated soundtrack--but with a narrative structure that remains enigmatic. This publication features a detailed essay by noted film theorist Kaja Silverman and a specially reconstructed version of Coleman's 1973 slide projection Seagulls.

This three-part book presents Coleman's ongoing investigation into the nature of perception, including his most recent trilogy, which examines our reactions to the process of being photographed.