Jay Wolke: Changing the Index

Most viewers expect photographs to reveal a lens-based, visually “accurate” representation, one that reconciles perception with memory. However, the characteristics that distinguish acts of documentation, abstraction, appropriation and materiality are complicated and as an artist, Jay Wolke scrutinizes the potential intersections that connect them. By experimenting with strategies that alter the cognitive cues of photographic representation, Jay has generated images that hover between multiple readings and contexts. In this presentation, Wolke will present examples of his current projects and discuss their intent and production.

About the Artist
Jay Wolke is an artist and educator living in Chicago, Illinois. His photographic monographs include: All Around the House: Photographs of American-Jewish Communal Life, 1998; Along the Divide: Photographs of the Dan Ryan Expressway, 2004; Architecture of Resignation: Photographs from the Mezzogiorno, 2011; and, Same Dream Another Time, 2017. His works have been exhibited internationally and are in the permanent print collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, MOMA of New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and MOMA in San Francisco, among others. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times Magazine, Guardian Magazine, Financial Times Magazine, Geo France, Exposure, Newsweek, Fortune and the Village Voice.

Jay Wolke is currently a Professor of Photography at Columbia College Chicago, where he was Chair of the Art and Design Department from 2000-2005 and 2008-2013.

Image: Jay Wolke, CompCan