Jason Lazarus
Untitled (#24), 2017
Estimated Value: $1,200

Silver gelatin photogram
24 x 20 inches
Unframed
Unique
Signed, on label
Donated by the artist, courtesy of Andrew Rafacz Gallery.

Since the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, I have been creating photograms. The text that repeats throughout these images, 202-456-1111, is the White House phone number, which began the current administration disconnected.

I’m not sure if photograms is the exact term for these works. A friend called them chemigrams, but after looking it up, I learned that chemigrams are made in full light. These are made quickly, like a protest sign, and in the dark. They are made with arms and legs that have a rare congenital condition, arthrogryposis, the same one that NY Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski—who 45 mocked on November 25, 2015—lives with.

The repetition of resistance requires very close scrutiny. The lives of the targets of this administration are infinite, complex, and irreducible. When we become students of these lives, as well as our own, the multitude of details we discover implores us to become more fully formed and in formation with each other. -JL 2018

*Integral to the spirit of these works, Lazarus actively donates the original photogram prints to a variety of social justice and non-profit arts organizations for their respective fundraising efforts, please send donation inquiries to lazarus@usf.edu.

202-456-1111
Project Monograph: Jason Lazarus with a text by Martha Rosler
7.5 x 90 inch accordion folded piece and 7.5 x 9 inch, 40 page saddle-stitched book, screen-printed envelope, Edition of 250, VSW Press Visual Book Club, 2018

About the Artist:
Jason Lazarus

Jason Lazarus, who began his career as a photographer, has slowly departed from the medium to pursue more conceptual projects; these, however, still remain deeply influenced by the history and practice of photography. Though he sometimes uses his own photographs as part of his practice, Lazarus also maintains ongoing, publicly engaged archive projects. For example, his series “Too Hard to Keep” (2010) is the result of an open call for photographs too hard to keep, yet too painful to destroy. He has also made a series of photograms titled “Heinecken Studies” (2010) in tribute to photographer Robert Heinecken, made using Heinecken’s ashes (with permission). More recently, Lazarus been making an ongoing series of unique photograms repeatedly handwriting the white house phone number, 202-456-1111. A selection of these works appear in a project monograph with an accompanying text by Martha Rosler (published by Visual Studies Workshop, 2018).

Website: andrewrafacz.com/
Facebook: /andrewrafaczgallery
Instagram: @andrewrafaczgallery