Source X Material

Long before X-men, X-Factor, Apple OS X, Netflix, Xbox, and SpaceX, the letter X was already a fascinating and potent character. It primarily represents the unknown, a trait it shares with photography. From cameras (Pentax) and film (Tri-X) to x-rays, xerography, crossing out and thus rejecting undesirable images, posing for photographs with our legs crossed, and more. It even refers to Generation X (of which I am part), a phrase coined by none other than Robert Capa, famed photojournalist and founder of Magnum Photos. This project focuses on the complex relationships between the letter X, artists' bodies, frames, and processes involved in making art using photographs and/or tools of photography. In a nod to the roman numeral X, I chose ten works from the collection of the Archives of American Art that feature literal or conceptual X's. I created new X-forms through collaboration, elimination, and transformation. These are hybrid works, unspecified things, objects that one need not give a specific name. They are artistic pseudonyms for 'things' that wish to remain unknown.