The photographs for which VanDerBeek first became known were, like the piece exhibited at MoMA, created in the studio with techniques borrowed from sculpture and collage. Most feature a single, somewhat rickety construction, laden with both photographic reproductions and talismanic objects—feathers, necklaces and chains, ribbons, and the like. The pictures are themselves invocations, calling forth the spirits of modernist precursors, from Constantin Brancusi and Alexander Calder to László Moholy-Nagy and Max Ernst; of classical cultures and historical figures; and of the artist’s father, the experimental filmmaker and artist Stan VanDerBeek, for whom the canny juxtaposition of images was second nature.
Illustrations: 1_Sara VanDerBeek, From the Means of Reproduction 2007, 101.6 cm x 76.2, digital c-print /// 2_Sara VanDerBeek, Eclipse 1 2008, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, digital c-print
