MAISON DE VERRE by James Welling with essay by Damien Sausset

Galerie Nelson-Freeman, 2009 First edition, 15 pp., 8" X 10 1/2" Softcover

Very good

In 2009, James Welling devoted a series of fifteen photographs to this major project by architect-decorator Pierre Chareau (1883-1950), Doctor Dalsace's Glass House, rue Saint-Guillaume in Paris. This masterpiece of modernity and interior architecture, created between 1928 and 1931, was designed as a total space whose metal structure is associated with glass panels and blocks. "[James Welling's] framing subtly amplifies the visual geometrization of the elements (tangible echo of the 1998 "New Abstractions" series). It also imperceptibly distorts the play of light, reinforcing the confusion between direct, natural lighting and the reflections of the play of mirrors on the materials. The nature of these images is thus composed of light suddenly frozen by the photographic recording then modified by the computer. Each image was subjected to a set of modifications on Photoshop, saturating by places the reflections, attenuating the play of shadows in others. Scarce.