Catherine Yass

Portrait: Selection Committee for the Arts Council Collection, 1994

Catherine Yass photographs people and institutions, and is interested in how people are affected by the environment in which they live or work. She has focused on portraits of curators, collectors and directors of institutions that have funded her work, in order to explore the relationship between artist, patron and institution. The people shown here were purchasers for the Arts Council Collection from 1992-94. They are (left to right): Vongphrachanh Phaophanit, Greg Hilty, Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton, Isobel Johnstone, Shirazeh Houshiary and Adrian Searle.

The artist has explained the making of this work: 'I have a large-format camera and there are two images in each dark slide - the first one is positive and the second is what is going to be the blue negative... There is a gap between the two moments when I take the first and then the second. The person has to sit still between these two moments and because the film requires a long shutter speed, the person has to sit still for quite a long time. I also have the camera on quite a long focal length, so if they move they can move out of focus as well. They have to concentrate quite hard on sitting still... Part of the reason for putting the negative in [the finished work] is to make the person looking at it aware that there is a medium there and it is not 'transparent'. The film divides the light inside the light box from the light outside.'