Casebere's pioneering work has established him at the forefront of artists working with constructed photography. His work was associated with the “Pictures Generation” of “post-modern” artists who emerged in the 1980’s, which included Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Laurie Simmons, Richard Prince, Matt Mullican, James Welling, Barbara Kruger, and others. For the last thirty years Casebere has consistently devised increasingly complex models and photographed them in his studio. Based solidly on an understanding of architecture as well as art historical and cinematic sources, Casebere's abandoned spaces are hauntingly evocative. His table-sized constructions are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms. Starting with Sonsbeek ’86, in Arnhem, Holland and ending around 1991 Casebere also made large scale sculpture installations.
Early bodies of work focused on images of the suburban home. He followed this with both photographs and sculptural installations dealing with the myth of the American West. In the early 1990s, Casebere turned his attention to the development of different cultural institutions during the enlightenment, and their representation as architectural types. With his photographs of prisons in particular, he critically addressed contemporary attitudes and approaches to incarceration, as well as metaphorically pointing to relationships of social control, and social structure in the broader society.
Since the late 1990’s he has made images whose sources span the globe starting with the bunker under the Reichstag (Flooded Hallway), and the sewers in Berlin (Two Tunnels). He created an expansive and beautiful body of work referencing the Atlantic slave trade. This includes a slave factory in West Africa, (Four Flooded Arches), plantations in the West Indies, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation home in Virginia (Monticello), and other 18th Century American colonial architecture.
The modern architects Victor Horta and Richard Neutra inspired him to create another small, austere group of works that seem to cast a critical eye on the homogenizing effects of globalization.
After 9/11 Casebere turned his attention toward Spain and the Eastern Mediterranean. Several works examine 10th century Andalusia and the flowering of culture and co-operation between Islamic, Jewish and Christian cultures before the Inquisition. Other images depict Tripoli, Lebanon, Nineveh and Samara in Iraq, and Luxor, Egypt. Several photographs of elaborate soaring models of mosques were inspired by the 16th century Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan.
Casebere is the recipient of numerous fellowships including three from the National Endowment for the Arts, three from the New York Foundation for the Arts and one from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His work has been collected by museums worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among many others.
Since the late 1990’s Casebere has lived in Fort Greene Brooklyn, with his wife Lorna Simpson and their daughter Zora.
Doisneau's father, a plumber, died on active service in WWI when Robert was about four. His mother died when he was seven so he was then raised by an unloving aunt.
At thirteen he enrolled at a craft school where he graduated in 1929 with diplomas in engraving and lithography. Here he had his first contact with the arts, taking classes in figure drawing and still life.
When he was 16 he took up amateur photography but was reportedly so shy that he started by photographing cobble-stones before progressing to children and then adults.
At the end of the 1920s Doisneau found work as a lettering artist in the advertising industry at Atelier Ullmann Studio. Here he took an opportunity to change career by also acting as camera assistant in the studio and then becoming a staff photographer.Robert Doisneau was known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. Influenced by the work of Andre Kertesz, Eugene Atget, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
He is known for his photographs of childrens' street culture. His work treats their play with seriousness and respect. In his honour, and owing to this, there are several Ecole Primaire (Primary Schools) named after him.
Robert Doisneau is one of France's best known photographers, for his street photography and the many playful images in everyday French life. His photographs over the course of several decades provide people with a great record of French life. He has published over twenty books with realistic and charming pictures of personal moments in the lives of individuals.
n 1950 he created his most recognizable work for Life - Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville ), a photo of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris, which became an internationally recognised symbol of young love in Paris.
In 1936 Doisneau married Pierrette Chaumaison whom he had met in 1934 when she was cycling through a village where he was on holiday. They had two daughters, Annette (b.1942) and Francine (b.1947). Annette worked as his assistant from 1979 until his death.
Pierrette died in 1993 suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Doisneau died six months later, having had a triple heart bypass and suffering from acute pancreatitis.
Doisneau was in many ways a shy and humble man, like his photography, still delivering his own work at the height of his fame. He chastised Francine for charging an 'indecent' daily fee of £2,000 for his work on a beer advertising campaign - he wanted only the rate of an "artisan photographer".
1. In what ways do you “construct” your identity? In what ways do you “perform” in your daily life?
I guess everyone constructs their identity by conforming to societal norms. I "perform" in my daily life by attending class, doing my homework, working, and doing other normal activities that I do not necessarily want to do, but have to do in order to fit into society.
2. Describe some ways in which your personal culture and social environments are “constructed”.
I guess my personal culture and social environments are "constructed" in the sense that I can make it whatever I want it to be. I can determine and "construct" whatever personal culture I desire. Also, social environments are "constructed" because they are made by the people that are a part of them.
3. Describe some ways in which your physical environment/space is “constructed”.
My physical environment is "constructed" because I alter and change it. I can arrange and rearrange my space however I want, and I can put whatever I want in the space and take things out as well.
4. In your daily life, what would you consider to be “real” and what would you consider to be “constructed/fabricated”?
In my daily life, I think things that are "real" are things in the natural world, such as trees, plants, animals, and the weather. Other things that are "real" are strong human relationships and feelings. Things that are "constructed" are things that are man-made, such as cities, buildings, clothing, and other material things. They also include false relationships, such as those found in the workplace, and societal hierarchies.
5. Describe a narrative tableaux that you might create to be captured by a photograph. A narrative tableaux can be defined as “Several human actors play out scenes from everyday life, history, myth or the fantasy of the direction artist” ( Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler , 34).
I think a narrative tableaux that I would like to create would be to get people to dress in costume and act out scenes from Greek mythology.
6. Describe an idea for a photograph that includes a miniature stage or still life. A description of such an image is “The tableaux reconstructs events as in the narrative tableaux, but in miniaturized format, using dolls and other toy objects” (Kohler, 34).
An idea for a photograph that includes a miniature stage or still life is to create a model of a house and place dolls representing family members within it. I would move the dolls around the house in order to create different scenes.
