Diane Cook & Len Jenshel: Aquarium

Viewpoint’s September exhibit is Aquarium, a collaborative project by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, who have been exploring the changing landscape of America for the past quarter century. Published in book form by Aperture in 2003, Aquarium pairs Cook’s black-and-white photographs with Jenshel’s color work.

“Our work has been involved with the appearance and perception of landscape, most notably that juncture between nature and culture,” write Cook and Jenshel. “This project, photographs from the world of public aquariums, is concerned with a topography of fantasy and artifice. These aquatic displays provide us with a window into a mysterious world of wonderment that we would not normally encounter in our everyday lives. We are fascinated not only by the human need to collect and contain, but also the impulse to provocatively package nature.”

“We are also intrigued by boundaries. First, the literal one of Plexiglas that separates the pleasures and terrors of their side, from the security and comfort of ours. Second, a metaphorical boundary where glass is curtain, aquarium is theater, and the drama is acted out on both stages. Third, and perhaps most important to us, is the blurring of the boundaries between the real, the unreal, and the ideal.”

“What sets our collaboration apart from most others is that one vision is color, while the other is black-and-white. This counterpoint produces a unique dialogue — sometimes harmonious, sometimes jarring, and sometimes humorous — but one that accentuates the contrasts between description and abstraction, reality and artifice, truth and fiction.”

One of the pioneers of the “New Color” movement, Len Jenshel has been photographing landscape and culture since 1974. Diane Cook has been photographing various aspects of landscape since her graduation from Rutgers University in 1976. They met in 1979, were married in 1983, and began collaborating in 1991. Their first collaboration, Hot Spots, about volcanic landscapes, was published in book form in 1996. Both have had numerous solo as well as joint exhibits, have received several grants, have worked on assignments for major domestic and international magazines, and are included in major public and private collections.

More information about the photographers and their work is available at www.cookjenshel.com.