Couturier Gallery is pleased to present Roger Lerner: Form In Light, a series of photographic architectural abstractions taken at Cedars Sinai Medical Center complex, located in Los Angeles, over a three year period using an iPhone and available light. Each of the 28 color images has been reproduced exactly as it was taken with no editing, cropping or manipulation. Roger Lerner: Form In Light runs from July 25 - August 22, 2015, with an artist’s reception, Saturday, July 25, 6-8pm.
iPhoneography has quickly become a formidable genre in art with fairs and festivals, galleries and awards dedicated to this singular electronic device. Not surprising since the allure of technology and art has existed since before electricity. The camera obscura, an optical marvel, was the obsession of many painters and led to the development of photography, with the oldest existing photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras, by Nicéphore Niépce (1826 or 1827), being an architectural image. From Matthew B. Brady’s Civil War photojournalism to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s candid street shots, the immediacy and documentary aspect of photography has been a critical aspect to the importance and relevance of the art form.
Roger Lerner is a practicing medical doctor whose perpetual interest in technology guided him to take thousands of images exploring the architectural details of various buildings and settings on the 30-acre Cedars Sinai Medical Center complex. As a doctor on call, Lerner took advantage of being at the hospital complex at all times of day and night to photograph the effects of the constant shift in light on the play of forms, shadows and reflections. The photos are deconstructed portraits of the locale as shown through color, refracted light, reflective surface and repetitive and divergent geometric patterns. The title of this show comes from Le Corbusier who described architecture as:
“…the masterly correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see form in light; light and shade reveal these form; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary form which light reveals to advantage.”
Form In Light is being presented in tandem with the Sulkin/Secant Gallery at Bergamot Station, which is featuring a series of Black & White architectural images by Roger Lerner titled “…light interrupted” running from August 15 - September 5.