institutional etiquette and strange overtones
David Johnson’s (b. 1982, Austin, TX) architecturally inspired photographs consider the dynamic between the built environment and its inhabitants, seeking out unexpected interplays of light, color, and form in the public and private spheres. To create his images, Johnson works with traditional large-format photographic processes (similar to those utilized by such noted photographers as Bernd and Hilla Becher and Thomas Struth) and then produces his images digitally. For his Great Rivers Biennial project, Johnson presents a new multi-part photographic series exploring the spaces that constitute CAM’s institutional ecosystem: the museum’s galleries and offices, as well as its donors’ private homes. Shot over several months during late 2011 and early 2012, these photographs capture not only a visually arresting array of interior angles and volumes, but they also signify a dramatic shift between natural and artificial light at various times of day, particularly during increasingly shorter daylight hours to the longer nights of the winter in which they were produced.