Photo by Matthew Porter
HANNAH WHITAKER
Hannah Whitaker is an artist and photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. She has had solo exhibitions at Marinaro, New York; M+B, Los Angeles; Galerie Christophe Gaillard, Paris; and Locust Projects, Miami. Group shows include those at FRAC Normandie Rouen, France; Galerie Nara Roesler, Sao Paolo; Galerie Xippas, Paris; and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles. She was included in the Public Art Fund's 2017 citywide exhibition, Commercial Break in New York; the 2014 Foam Talent, which traveled to Paris, Amsterdam and Dubai; and Rencontres d'Arles in France in 2012, where she was nominated for the Discovery Prize. Last year, she was featured in New Visions: The Henie Onstad Triennial for Photography and New Media at the Henie Onstad museum in Norway. Her forthcoming book Ursula will be published by Image Text Ithaca Press.
Salute, 2017
Archival Pigment Print
50 1/2”H x 40”W
ED of 3 + 2 AP
Courtesy of Marinaro Gallery
Kick, 2017
Archival Pigment Print
50 1/2”H x 40”W
ED of 3 + 2 AP
Courtesy of Marinaro Gallery
“I layer multiple exposures onto 4×5 film with the intervention of hand-cut masks. Through that method… I can layer different kinds of graphics onto an image while still using all optical means. The process feels very mechanical and very automated in certain ways.”
— Hannah Whitaker
“Even though they are clearly female body parts, which you could think of as highly sexually charged territory, I make it a point to present my bodies in this very deadpan, very flat way.”
— Hannah Whitaker
Caillard, Frédéric, ”HANNAH WHITAKER – THE INTERVIEW”, Abstract Room, June 15, 2017
“I asked myself how to automate a photograph, how to remove the artist’s expressive voice as much as possible”
— Hannah Whitaker
Caillard, Frédéric, ”HANNAH WHITAKER – THE INTERVIEW”, Abstract Room, June 15, 2017
“In her opening monologue at TechCrunch’s 2017 Annual Crunchies Awards, comedian and host Chelsea Peretti asked the room why every mainstream AI personal assistant was given a female name. ‘I’m surprised there isn’t just one called Mommy,’ she exclaimed. Since then feminized AI assistants have only become more popular and prolific, even making their way onto television shows like NBC’s The Good Place where D’Arcy Carden’s Janet character, though portrayed by a woman, frequently reminds people she is neither a girl nor a person but rather a creation built in the shape of one to serve others. In her new book, Ursula, Brooklyn-based photographer Hannah Whitaker explores this phenomenon and considers how much modern technology and our very conceptions of the future are a product of male fantasy.”
Elias, Naomi., “HANNAH WHITAKER with Naomi Elias”, Brooklyn Rail