Variations: The Architecture Photographs of Jenny Okun

Hardcover | 29.97 x 2.03 x 30.48 cm | 180 pp

Five Ties Publishing | 2008 | 9780977719334

This first major monograph on photographer Jenny Okun gathers 93 images that span more than twenty-five years of the artist's work. Independently and through prestigious commissions, Okun has traveled the world to create dazzling, multilayered interpretations of buildings by Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Richard Rogers, and many other renowned architects. Okun's commissions have included the J. Paul Getty Museum, Tate Modern, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Okun's artwork consists of large-scale colour photographic abstractions of architectural works. Rather than produce literal representations of buildings, she distills their essential qualities of form, texture, colour, and detail, developing a Cubist interpretation.

"Looking at architecture," Okun has written, "is like listening to music. Both are dramatic forms that reveal multiple, repeating themes. Above all, both require time. Just as a symphony cannot be experienced in a few seconds, it is impossible to see a whole building all at once. When I photograph a building, I feel as if I am conducting with my camera as I explore the architect's themes in time and space. The layering of harmonious overlapping shapes creates new and playful variations on the theme of the original architecture."

"Architecture is about form, space, and time and the play of light on mass. It's about the different levels of transparency real and implied. Okun uses the camera
to compose and capture the art of architecture, the details and overlapping layers, freezing them in time and capturing the essence of movement through time." Richard Rogers

"My work has always been an intuitive process - playing with shapes, translating movement. Jenny Okun and I work in a similar way by intuitively animating
forms and capturing movement, Okun's photographs go right to the soul of architecture, allowing us to share her vision of the creativity of the architect. I am happy that my wok has inspired her to make such beautiful and experimental creations." Frank O. Gehry