NO STONE UNTURNED

The large-scale photographs by American artist Jay Mark Johnson achieve something ordinarily impossible for photography: by means of a modified panoramic camera they record continuous movement. In doing so, Johnson breaks with established ways of seeing and creates a new visual language, one that at first may appear enigmatic to the beholder. At the same time he adjusts the parameters of his recording in such a manner that the visual shifts remain rather subtle. The strong visual appeal of his carefully arranged compositions arises from the tension between the seemingly familiar and the mysteriously different.

In terms of content the de-familiarized appearances effected by Johnson's photographic technique also serve the purpose of questioning habitual modes of perception and reading. The exhibition NO STONE UNTURNED is dedicated to the oftentimes invasive, shortsighted and non-holistic encroachments wrought on nature by man, be it through mining, deforestation, urban sprawl, traffic, warfare, or tourism, as well as through man-made climate change. The severe forest fires around Los Angeles, where Johnson lived until two years ago, in January of this year were another urgent wake-up call that a change of course is urgently required. The progressive destruction of our natural environment as an ongoing development is reflected in the time-based character of his photographs. A particular focus is on the juxtaposition between nature and technology exemplified by heavy machinery, as in the works "Fly Rock" and "Carbon Dating", both photographed in Kentucky, USA, as well as "Off To Be Milked By Machines" from New South Wales, Australia. Some of the images from Kenya and Zimbabwe also betray forms of human intrusion in the guise of safari tourism, such as "AMBOSELI #126, Kenya" and "MAASAI MARA #134, Kenya." Others, presenting untarnished landscapes, provide hope for a more wholesome treatment of the last remaining natural reserves left on the planet.

Jay Mark Johnson was educated at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and has worked as an assistant to Peter Eisenman, as well as for Rem Koolhaas and Aldo Rossi. Works of his are in the permanent collections of the MOMA in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as the Collection Frederick R. Weisman and the Langen Foundation, Hombroich. Johnson's varied and prolific career spans theatre and performance art, photography, live musical performance, and journalism. He co-founded three different alternative television collectives first in Manhattan, and then in Mexico and El Salvador during the eighties at the height of political repression and unrest in those countries. After his return from Latin America he started working in the movie industry and is now a film director with broad experience in visual effects production, having supervised, directed or otherwise contributed to the computer-generated imagery for nearly a dozen major studio films and television series, such as Outbreak, Matrix, Titanic, Tank Girl, Moulin Rouge, White Oleander, and music videos for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others. Jay Mark Johnson lives and works in New Orleans, USA.