Trevor Paglen, Parcae Constellation Near Cygnus (Naval Ocean Surveillance System; USA 173), 2008

Artist and geographer Trevor Paglen is part of a group exhibition at Sprüeth Magers in Berlin. The twelve artists in Rethinking Location present sites and places, both imaginary and real. Paglen’s work The Other Night Sky documents 189 U.S. military spacecrafts. Paglen’s photographs of operations behind the scenes of the American government were featured in Aperture magazine issue 191. His book, Invisible: Classified Landscapes and Covert Actions, will be released by Aperture this fall.

Exhibition on view:
May 1–June 19, 2010

Sprüeth Magers:
Oranienburger Straße 18
D-10178 Berlin

Unknown, Untitled, n.d.; Collection SFMOMA, gift of Gordon Bennett

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art commemorates its 75th anniversary this year and, as part of the festivities, will host a symposium asking “is photography over?” on April 22 & 23.  Aperture-published writers on the panel include Aperture magazine contributing editor Vince Aletti and the author of the upcoming book Words Without Pictures, Charlotte Cotton. Artists on the panel include Trevor Paglen, featured in Aperture magazine 191, and Walead Beshty, featured in issue 192. You can read each participant’s answer to the question before the two-day summit where they will discuss the state of the medium.

Check out new Aperture projects by Sanna Kannisto and Trevor Paglen coming soon, made possible by the Aperture Fund for Emerging Artists. In this clip, watch Trevor Paglen talk about his exploration of covert activities by the U.S. Government in his first monograph, Invisible, to be released in Fall 2010, and Aperture’s publisher Lesley A. Martin speaking about our long standing commitment to discovering and publishing the work of new and visionary photographers.

Often shot from a long distance, Paglen explains how the fuzziness of his images questions how we perceive and interpret images in our society using techniques from both the photography and the astronomy fields. Following the tradition of 19th century landscape photographers like Muybridge, he speaks about his series of spy satellites taken over pictorial western landscapes connecting the dots between both, as tools of discovery for unknown territories and geographical expansion. Paglen finally touches on the political performance as part of his photographic practice.

Now more than ever, we need your support to bring the outstanding work of these artists the global attention it deserves. Please contribute $10 or more today by clicking on the link below:

Click here to make a $10 donation to this fund now

Click here for more information on the Aperture Fund for Emerging Artists

Keyhole Improved Optical Treconnaissance Satellite Near Scorpio (USA 129) ©Trevor Paglen

Bellwether Gallery
Friday, March 6–Saturday, April 4, 2009
134 Tenth Avenue, between 18th and 19th Streets
(212) 929-5959

Currently on view at Bellwether Gallery is the second solo exhibition of the artist, geographer and landscape photographer Trevor Paglen.

For several years, Paglen has been working on tracking and photographing classified American spacecraft in the earth’s orbit. The result is the project The Other Night Sky, a series of 11 photographs and a single multimedia installation that reveal a very different sky than the one most of us see when we look up on a clear evening. These mysterious space objects are indistinguishable from stars or planets and they uncover the mystery and wonder about the endless possibilities of the sky.

To create this body of work, Trevor Paglen used observational data from an international network of amateur “satellite observers.” In collaboration with a team of computer scientist and engineers at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology, he spent two years developing a software model, which was able to translate the observational data into a usable form that could reveal the orbital position and motion of the classified spacecraft.
Then, he photographed them using telescopes and large-format cameras, and a computer-guided mechanical mount. The result was these incredibly color-intensive photographs of the night sky.

Active Military and Reconnaissance Satellites of the United States of America, Multimedia Installation © Trevor Paglen

Trevor Paglen is a 2008 recipient of SFMOMA’s SECA Art Award, which features an exhibition that runs concurrently with this exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His visual work has been exhibited in several well-known venues throughout the world such as Transmediale.08 Festival, Berlin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Kunstraum Muenchen, Munich; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams and many others. His work has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Art Forum, and in the Summer 2008 issue of Aperture magazine.

In 2008, he also published his third book, Blank Spots on the Map.

Also view this article from ArtForum where the artist talks about his work.

New Aperture Magazine
Issue 191, Summer 2008

Features include:
-Sophie Calle: A Lover’s Monologue by Giuseppe Merlino
-The films of Robert Frank by Luc Sante
-The surveillance photographs of Trevor Paglen (cover artist) by Thomas Keenan
-Gilles Peress and John Berger respond to Picasso’s Guerinaca
-Amei Wallach examines Jane Hammond’s photo-collages
-Vince Aletti looks back at the heyday of Town & Country
-The campy photographs of James Bidgood by Philip Gefter
-Recent photography and video from Japan
-Mary Panzer’s unflinching look at Iraq War Veterans

PLUS much more.

>Subscribe now and receive a FREE book