Craigie horsfield biography of donald

The work of Craigie Horsfield is concerned with relations—among individuals, communities, interactions and encounters, all vis-à-vis the weight of time. Horsfield is known to use the phrase "slow history" in relation to his work, referring to a history of everyday narratives and lived moments beyond the singular events so often used to organize the past. His work is at times antithetical to a contemporary present that is more concerned with forgetting and fracturing communal experience. To explore our quiet realities, Horsfield has created photographs, video installations, and sound pieces.

Born in Cambridge in 1949, Horsfield first studied painting at St. Martin's School of Art in London, but decided early on to focus on photography for its "mimetic role," relation to time, and the "immanence of its history."[1] In 1972 he left Britain for Kraków, Poland, attracted by its socialist history and disillusioned with the art scene in London. Horsfield remained in Poland for seven years, first studying Graphics at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts and later teaching part-time at the Academy of Sciences. During this time, he took black-and-white, documentary photographs of friends, relatives, desolate interiors, and street scenes. He waited over a decade to develop these images from the 1970s, and only began to exhibit them in 1987, citing the artistic climate of the time with its limiting interpretations as a deterrent. Since then, he has continued the practice of leaving a long period of time between capturing and developing his images, separating the work from the present moment in an effort to elevate the image from that of a mere record. In 1994, Horsfield increasingly began to dedicate his energies to collaborative projects that engage local communities. The El Hierro Conversation video project (2003), for instance, enlisted the participation of hundreds of residents from the smallest of the Canary Islands, El Hierro. Horsfield recorded conversations with residents who spoke of their personal and collective experiences, fostering a sense of communal identity through their shared retracing of the past. El Hierro Conversation was featured at Documenta XI and the Whitney Biennial (2004).

Horsfield's works have been shown across Europe and North America. In 1996, he was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize. Horsfield has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; and Kunsthalle Zürich, among others. His work is in the collections of the Walker Art Center; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth; The Israel Museum; Jerusalem; Tate Gallery, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; and many others. Horsfield lives and works in London and New York.

CEJ

[1] "Craigie Horsfield: A Discussion with Jean-Francois Chevrier and James Lingwood: 10 May 15 & 16 June & 1 July 1991," in Craigie Horsfield (London: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1991), 8.