Synopsis:
Duane Michals was seventy when he conceived the extended sequence of photographs and poetic texts that constitute The House I Once Called Home. A few years after the death of his aged mother, he returned to his native Pittsburgh to revisit the house in which he was born and brought up. Its deteriorated state proved a poignant focus for his memories, prompting reveries on mortality and the succession of generations that found form both verbally and visually. The interaction of Michals' words and images provides a moving a sensitive and moving account of one man's journey through life. The frequent superimposition of new photographs onto much older images taken in the same location during his earlier life there, at times suggesting the ghostly presence of those no longer with us, creates a highly affecting layering of time that lies at the center of Michals' art. Powerfully intimate in its focus, The House I Once Called Home demonstrates conclusively the possibility of exposing universal truths through the most personal events. It is a work to which every reader will be able to relate through the filter of his or her own experience, and which will undoubtedly accrue new meanings as we ourselves return to it at different stages in our lives.
About the Author:
Duane Michals (born 1932) is one of the most eminent of living photographers, who has redefined photography as a means of expressing experience and emotion. Michals’ innovative, subtle techniques have been highly influential to many photographers for decades. He is famous in particular for his photo sequences and his portraits: his subjects have included Magritte, Duchamp, de Kooning, Tennessee Williams, Joseph Cornell, and Andy Warhol. He has had many museum retrospectives throughout the world, and is represented in the USA by Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and in the UK by Hamiltons in London. Michals’ photographs are in the collections of all the major US museums including the Art Institute of Chicago; International Museum of Photography, Rochester; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. Outside the USA his work is in many prominent collections, among them the Australian National Gallery of Art; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; National Gallery of Canada; and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam. Duane Michals has received many awards including the Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, UK; Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Boston; and the Gold Medal for Photography, National Arts Club, New York. Michals has also been made an Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
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