Artist Post 2: Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan was born in 1946, in New York.  Sultan received a Bachelors degree from the University of California in 1968, and a Masters of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1973.  Earning several Photography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sultan also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983.  Sultan had his work shown at numerous exhibitions including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., San Francisco Muesum of Modern Art, and many more.  Author of numerous published books The Valley, 2004, and Pictures from Home, 1995 contain some of Sultan’s best known work. 

In Pictures from Home Sultan explored his family history and their documentation of his family.  Sultan determined what the word “family” really means by exploring his past.  “Pictures from Home was a ten-year project exploring the myths of family life. I used my parent's family snapshots and stills from their home movies along with photographs that I made of them to create an interweaving set of images and text that explores how photography helps to construct family history and identity.”   Sultan also is known for his work The Valley series, which focused on the area in which he grew up, San Fernando Valley.  Sultan photographed ordinary homes as sets for pornographic films.   In this work Sultan used suburban life as a backdrop.  Sultan stated in an interview, “I find a lot of depictions of suburban life to be quite shallow. Either they're hypercritical, like new topographics where tract homes are seen as generic structures for generic lives, or they're the kind of one-dimensional dramas or sitcoms that are prevalent in popular culture. …To me, the suburban home is a kind of projection screen for fantasies, it's rich for storytelling.”

I am drawn to Sultan’s work and how he incorporated classic suburbia as the setting and backdrop for his series. Furthermore, I am also interested in the way Larry Sultan portrayed his characters and family in his projects.  I am focusing on dollhouses as a stage for my photos.  I primarily used myself in my dollhouse series and took a variety of classic occasions that occur in family life and the roles females play in households. The dollhouse symbolizes the traditional house.  I want my audience to feel a connection would like to expand my repertoire and use a variety of women and see how this changes my project.

Larry Sultan, Practicing Golf Swing, 1989, chromogenic print,

17 1/2 in. x 21 7/16 in

Larry Sultan, My Father Reading the Newspaper from the series Pictures from Home 

1985, Chromogenic print, 17 1/16 x 21 3/16 inches

Larry Sultan, “Topanga Skyline Drive #1,” from the series The Valley; 

1999; Chromogenic print; 40 in. x 50 in.

Larry Sultan, Cabana, 2000, Chromogenic print;

Larry Sultan Child's Bedroom, Calabassas, 

2001, Chromogenic print;

Website: Larry Sultan doesn’t have a website.

Gallery: Larry Sultan’s most recent solo exhibition was 2005, at the Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne, Switzerland.

http://www.wirtzgallery.com/bios/bio_sultan-2.htm

Interview: http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa422.htm

Works Cited

Larry Sultan: The Valley.  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 4 February 2011. <http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa422.htm>.

                                                                                

Larry Sultan Biography.  4 February 2011. <http://www.janetbordeninc.com/biographies/Sultan.pdf>.

Larry Sultan Biography. 4 February 2011. <http://www.wirtzgallery.com/bios/bio_sultan-2.html>.