Name Gordon Watkinson | Books Bauhaus Twenty-twenty-one | |
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Bauhaus twenty 21 an ongoing legacy photographs by gordon watkinson
Gordon Watkinson (born in 1964 in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States) is an American visual artist whose work has a strong focus on architecture and design. Fascinated by forms, structures and materials Watkinson explores the role of architecture and design as life changing tools, while revisiting both visually and conceptually major architectural shifts from a contemporary perspective, with a particular emphasis on the modernist era.
Contents
- Bauhaus twenty 21 an ongoing legacy photographs by gordon watkinson
- Gordon watkinson gallery talk tour
- Work
- Exhibitions
- Books
- References
Gordon watkinson gallery talk tour
Work
Watkinson discovered photography while studying at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia where a professor encouraged him to pursue a career as a photographer. Following initial years as a photography assistant Watkinson worked as a commercial photographer in advertising, architecture, design and fashion, and directed commercial videos for clients such as the Spiegel catalog and Texas Instruments.
Inspired by a visit to the Bauhaus school in Dessau, Germany in the 1990s Gordon Watkinson created the large-scale traveling exhibition Bauhaus twenty-21: An Ongoing Legacy, featuring the work of Bauhaus masters and students Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Georg Muche, and Richard Paulick in dialogue with early 21st century's buildings by established as well as internationally renowned architects such as RCR, Sauerbruch Hutton, Werner Sobek or Gert Wingårdh. Presented under the patronage of UNESCO the exhibition opened at the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, Germany in March 2009, commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus. Since then it has been touring extensively throughout Europe (Kraków, Nice, Munich, Stockholm, Ljubljana, Bratislava, Brussels, Eindhoven, Tampere) and is currently touring in the US.
Watkinson's singular vision of the architecture, with its particular emphasis on frontal views and abstract forms as well as on the materiality of the structures, has shaped an important body of work photographing architecture and design, including buildings and objects by Marcel Breuer, Eileen Gray, Le Corbusier, Jacobus Oud, Jean Prouvé, and also sculpture, more particularly the work of Auguste Rodin.
Watkinson's work has been published in The Dallas Morning News (US), ELLE Decoration (Germany), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), Numéro (France), Le Point (France), PHOTO International (Germany), Süddeutsche Zeitung-Magazin (Germany).
Watkinson regularly lectures and gives workshops in museums and universities both in Europe and in the US, most recently at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo (Norway), at the Bauhaus University in Weimar (Germany), at Mississippi State University and at the University of Memphis.