Extent:

119.9 Linear Feet (102 boxes, 1 boxed-roll)

Scope and content:

The series comprises photographs for most of Sekula's photographic projects beginning with his student work in the early 1970s and continuing through his last works such as Ship of Fools (1999-2011) and Europa (2011).

Sekula's conceptual and stylistic breakthrough came early in his career when, as a graduate student, he began photographing in a serial manner, akin to documentary photography and is already present in his student project Untitled Slide Sequence (1972) which documents shift workers leaving the General Dynamics aerospace factory in San Diego. The sequence, initially conceived as a slide show and later reprinted as a photo series, presents 25 images taken from the end of the day shift until the time that Sekula was evicted from the property for trespassing.

Sekula's first major project, Aerospace Folktales (1973) was informed by his father's career as an aerospace engineer. In this work, dozens of photographs document his parents and family in their small apartment following his father's layoff from Lockheed Martin. In addition to the photographs, the work initially featured three audio tracks: interviews with his father and his mother, and a commentary by Sekula that owes much to the "talk pieces" of his teacher, David Antin. The work was initially presented as an installation at UCSD.

Sekula developed a style of photographic installation that existed somewhere between photography, cinema, and literature, drawing liberally from the conventions of conceptual art, postmodernism, and the history of documentary photography. While his projects are photographically-based their meaning rests with the entirety of a series, rather than with any individual image. Sekula's visual work is often placed in dialogue with text. Thus, a Sekula installation might require one to sit and read an essay or listen to multimedia elements while viewing a series of photographs. An installation might also contain additional sculptural or "prop-like" elements. Aerospace Folktales, for example, consists of 51 photographs and texts displayed in over 20 frames, three red director's chairs, potted plants, and audio recordings, and was meant to function as a "disassembled" movie. Meanwhile, War Without Bodies (1991-1996), asks viewers to sit on a soldier's cot and read a text about the first Gulf War while viewing a grid of images that depict men caressing and pushing their fingers into the barrel of heavy artillery guns.

The various strands of Sekula's artistic and critical practice culminate in Fish Story (1989-1995), his most exhibited and perhaps most ambitious work. Consisting of over 100 photographs and 26 text panels organized into several "chapters" and two slide projections, the piece reflects on the history of shifting visual representations of the sea and the global maritime world. It presents photographs Sekula took aboard ship at sea and in port locations spanning Asia, Europe, and North America that document the physical conditions of labor and economic activity in an emerging age of global trade and capital. It was originally exhibited in venues deliberately chosen for their proximity to historic ports, so as to encourage dialogue with labor groups. Today, Fish Story stands out for its prescient examination of globalization in its early stages.

Project titles are Sekula's titles. Individual images within a project often lack Sekula titles; for clarity these titles were devised by the archivist and enclosed in brackets. The code letters assigned to each project or group of images by the Sekula studio are given in the scope and contents note for each group. The scope and contents notes include information from the original Sekula Studio inventory such as: print type (working print, proof print, exhibition print, etc; quality of print and printing issues; exhibition notes; some later series include file names for corresponding digitial files.

Processing information:

This series was processed by Beth Ann Guynn.

Arrangement:

Arranged chronologically by project following original Sekula Studio inventory.

Contents

Access and use