Luisa Lambri, an Italian artist, photographs impressive buildings but emphasizes the lights and surroundings rather than the architecture itself.
The Italian native will present her exhibit, “Being There,” opening Saturday at the UCLA Hammer Museum. Her work is extremely site-specific to Los Angeles, where she photographs architecture while looking past the structure itself through a popular 1960s movement in Los Angeles called the light and space movement, which works to create an idea in the photo meant to be seen beyond the material aspect presented in the photo.
At age 14, Lambri started traveling and taking photographs. Her interest in photography led her to consider studying art and photography in college, but she decided to pursue art outside of art school. Lambri explained that in Europe, people find other ways to train as an artist beyond academia. Her development as an artist had to do with self-discovery rather than studying or learning in college.
Her exhibition at the Hammer Museum features architecture in Los Angeles by architect John Lautner. She takes photographs of these homes and attempts to surpass the actual material object in the photo to capture what is being photographed beyond the object.
“I take pictures of architecture, but architecture is really just a material; the work is more about how you perceive space and how you feel and relate to space. The work has to do with these connections,” Lambri said.
The goal that Lambri is trying to accomplish is for viewers to see space, which is behind and beyond the architectural object.
“It’s a bit more of an abstract real, it’s a dimension you find beyond architecture, it’s more of a mental place,” said Lambri.
Lambri has been doing this type of artwork for 10 years and the location where she presents her art affects the influences and direction she chooses for the exhibit.
“Conception photography in California is very personal, very subject, while in Europe it’s always about subjectivity,” said Lambri.
Lambri described her inspiration as originating from Lautner’s techniques in his architecture.
“He is very skilled in appropriately placing architecture in a surrounding through nature and the surrounding. (Lautner) is incredibly interesting for me. His relationship with nature was very inspiring for me,” Lambri said.
Lambri plans to create another experience for viewers in the display of her photos in the exhibition at the Hammer Museum.
“I always work on installations in a kind of conscious way,” Lambri said.
She will work with the environment in which her photos will be displayed by creating a space and another experience altogether for the viewers.
James Welling, a UCLA professor of photography who plans on viewing the exhibit, described Lambri’s photographs as abstract representations of architecturally important buildings.
“She’s … less (interested) in showing the architecture than in showing how the architecture frames different views, so it’s about a frame rather than a structure where architecture is usually thought of as a house,” said Welling.
Lambri concerns herself with her own sense of being in the space, and her presence in looking at it.
Douglas Fogle, chief curator at the Hammer Museum, will host Lambri’s photography exhibition.
“It’s a combination in her work of photography and architecture and the way she installs the work that gets me very excited,” said Fogle.
Lambri’s approach to photography is mindful of how she incorporates space in her photography and of the way she presents them to the audience.
“It’s all a real combination. What’s as important to her is actually being in the gallery here and installing the actual individual photographs and moving them around as is when she sets up the camera and finds the right angle in the houses she shoots in,” said Fogle.
According to Fogle, she hopes viewers who see the exhibition notice the very subtle changes in each photograph as they are presented in the exhibition.
“Where they might all look the same there’s actually really subtle differences with the lighting,” said Fogle.
The exhibition is a look at Los Angeles through the eyes of an Italian artist.
“(Lambri presents) this idea of Los Angeles with the built environment and the natural environment, and how much we experience Los Angeles is about that inside and outside (perspective) of the natural world. Here there’s always the hills and ocean and that sensibility is really L.A. I think she’s trying to capture it in a very poetic way in these photographs,” Fogle said.
Lambri reflected on this connection between built and natural environments.
“Architecture is really just a material; the work is more about how you perceive space and how you feel and relate to space. The work has to do with these connections,” Lambri said.