May 8, 2025
John Divola
Strange Resemblance
Chateau Shatto
April 12 - May 17, 2025
John Divola
John Divola both creates photographs and appropriates them. For his exhibition Strange Resemblance he makes connections across three series: MGM (1979), Continuity (1995) and X-Files (2002). Divola's impressive career has woven through a wide range of subjects and intentions including Zuma — his best known series — to Dogs Chasing my Car in the Desert. In Zuma, he photographed an abandoned house overlooking Zuma Beach and made a suite of color images that captured his intervention (spray painting the already graffitied interior walls) while simultaneously framing the ever changing ocean views. For Dogs Chasing my Car in the Desert, he created grainy black and white photographs of dogs aggressively chasing after his vehicle.
While Divola has photographed both urban and natural aspects of the Southern California landscape, his process is more conceptually driven than documentary. When he is not actually taking pictures with a camera, Divola's works becomes more theoretical and philosophical. In these projects, he investigates the indexical nature of photography, as well as how meaning can be discerned through the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated images. He is interested in creating sequences that explore these often surprising relationships among ideas, places and things.
The artificial, yet seemingly "real" aspects of Hollywood are explored in each of the series on view in Strange Resemblance. For MGM (1979), Divola visited an MGM studio back lot to make black and white photographs of the dilapidated remains New York City sets. The architectural facades are barely standing fragments, stoic and beautiful as ruins depicting arrays of burned out cars, crisscrossing fire escapes and decaying theatre marquees all shot at a distance and set against the expansive California sky.
In the exhibition, these images are juxtaposed with larger color photographs that Divola created on the set of The X-Files during its final season in 2002. The X-Files was a popular TV series that developed a cult-like following. It revolved around FBI agents who investigated strange phenomena, UFOs and other unexplained paranormal activities and conspiracy theories. Though only a few images from the series are included, like the images in MGM they also evoke a sense of place that is both artificial and "real."
Devoid of people and context, photographs like (X20F3) Brady Bunch House, Second Floor Hall - Stage 11 and (X18F3) - Brady Bunch House Dining Room, View One - Stage 6 depict empty interior sets for a specific episode of The X-Files that was about a man obsessed with The Brady Bunch. Divola's photograph (X18F3) highlights bright green walls and matching chairs, a circular red-orange table, as well as a round glowing light fixture hanging from the ceiling, all items that pertain to a modernist home from the 1960s or 70s. In addition, the haloed light suggests supernatural powers. (X26F15) Ceiling Above Mulder's Desk - Stage 5, is a photograph of a banal office ceiling. Depicted is the top half of a bookshelf situated under industrial ceiling tiles and a large vent. Hanging from the tiles, as if in suspended animation are five pencils— the aftermath of a game bored office workers play: flipping pencils like darts to see if they stick into the tiles. (X11F1) Hall to X-File Office - Stage 5 also depicts a generic office. Here, Divola frames a dead end — a corner with a short set of stairs that lead up to a wall. Two black filing cabinets with a white file box sealed with bright red tape on top — the only color in the image — draws the eye in.
Stairs to nowhere also appear in Divola's series Continuity. These are images shot for Warner Brothers Studio between 1931 and 1934 and according to Divola, they were created "to aid in the preservation of filmic continuity." Each black and white photograph is a contact print from an 8 x 10 negative depicting a scene fabricated for a camera. Within each picture is a placard with the name of the film and the director, as well as the location. Over the years, Divola has collected these images and amassed a large archive that he organizes by subject. On view in Strange Resemblance is a grid of twelve vintage silver prints depicting both interior and exterior stairs. While they appear to be "real" places, they are in fact images of sets fabricated for the various films.
Divola's interests here — be it the set of The X-Files, a decaying backlot at MGM or the stairways in Continuity — relate to his own 'fabricated' photographs, many of which investigate themes of absence. What ties together the different series in Strange Resemblance is the fact that they are devoid of people, yet are scenes and places obviously constructed and arranged by human hands for the express purpose of representing a fiction. The images are about possibilities and through Divola's appropriation, they become meditations on the power of photography to present illusions.
Strange Resemblance
Chateau Shatto
April 12 - May 17, 2025
John Divola
John Divola both creates photographs and appropriates them. For his exhibition Strange Resemblance he makes connections across three series: MGM (1979), Continuity (1995) and X-Files (2002). Divola's impressive career has woven through a wide range of subjects and intentions including Zuma — his best known series — to Dogs Chasing my Car in the Desert. In Zuma, he photographed an abandoned house overlooking Zuma Beach and made a suite of color images that captured his intervention (spray painting the already graffitied interior walls) while simultaneously framing the ever changing ocean views. For Dogs Chasing my Car in the Desert, he created grainy black and white photographs of dogs aggressively chasing after his vehicle.
While Divola has photographed both urban and natural aspects of the Southern California landscape, his process is more conceptually driven than documentary. When he is not actually taking pictures with a camera, Divola's works becomes more theoretical and philosophical. In these projects, he investigates the indexical nature of photography, as well as how meaning can be discerned through the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated images. He is interested in creating sequences that explore these often surprising relationships among ideas, places and things.
The artificial, yet seemingly "real" aspects of Hollywood are explored in each of the series on view in Strange Resemblance. For MGM (1979), Divola visited an MGM studio back lot to make black and white photographs of the dilapidated remains New York City sets. The architectural facades are barely standing fragments, stoic and beautiful as ruins depicting arrays of burned out cars, crisscrossing fire escapes and decaying theatre marquees all shot at a distance and set against the expansive California sky.
In the exhibition, these images are juxtaposed with larger color photographs that Divola created on the set of The X-Files during its final season in 2002. The X-Files was a popular TV series that developed a cult-like following. It revolved around FBI agents who investigated strange phenomena, UFOs and other unexplained paranormal activities and conspiracy theories. Though only a few images from the series are included, like the images in MGM they also evoke a sense of place that is both artificial and "real."
Devoid of people and context, photographs like (X20F3) Brady Bunch House, Second Floor Hall - Stage 11 and (X18F3) - Brady Bunch House Dining Room, View One - Stage 6 depict empty interior sets for a specific episode of The X-Files that was about a man obsessed with The Brady Bunch. Divola's photograph (X18F3) highlights bright green walls and matching chairs, a circular red-orange table, as well as a round glowing light fixture hanging from the ceiling, all items that pertain to a modernist home from the 1960s or 70s. In addition, the haloed light suggests supernatural powers. (X26F15) Ceiling Above Mulder's Desk - Stage 5, is a photograph of a banal office ceiling. Depicted is the top half of a bookshelf situated under industrial ceiling tiles and a large vent. Hanging from the tiles, as if in suspended animation are five pencils— the aftermath of a game bored office workers play: flipping pencils like darts to see if they stick into the tiles. (X11F1) Hall to X-File Office - Stage 5 also depicts a generic office. Here, Divola frames a dead end — a corner with a short set of stairs that lead up to a wall. Two black filing cabinets with a white file box sealed with bright red tape on top — the only color in the image — draws the eye in.
Stairs to nowhere also appear in Divola's series Continuity. These are images shot for Warner Brothers Studio between 1931 and 1934 and according to Divola, they were created "to aid in the preservation of filmic continuity." Each black and white photograph is a contact print from an 8 x 10 negative depicting a scene fabricated for a camera. Within each picture is a placard with the name of the film and the director, as well as the location. Over the years, Divola has collected these images and amassed a large archive that he organizes by subject. On view in Strange Resemblance is a grid of twelve vintage silver prints depicting both interior and exterior stairs. While they appear to be "real" places, they are in fact images of sets fabricated for the various films.
Divola's interests here — be it the set of The X-Files, a decaying backlot at MGM or the stairways in Continuity — relate to his own 'fabricated' photographs, many of which investigate themes of absence. What ties together the different series in Strange Resemblance is the fact that they are devoid of people, yet are scenes and places obviously constructed and arranged by human hands for the express purpose of representing a fiction. The images are about possibilities and through Divola's appropriation, they become meditations on the power of photography to present illusions.