Song of Sentient Beings #1588

Artist Bill Jacobson American, born 1955

Date1995

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensions24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
Frame: 40 x 33 in. (101.6 x 83.8 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of Allen G. Thomas Jr. in memory of Vincent Thomas

Object number2014.14.34

On View

Not on view

Label TextHaving lost countless friends during the 1970s AIDS epidemic, Bill Jacobson uses the medium of photography to explore his personal feelings of loss and the universal transience of life. Distinguished by a soft focus style, the ethereal blur found in much of Jacobson’s body of work disorients the viewer and challenges the notion of photographs as tangible captured moments of permanent realities.

Jacobson’s Song of Sentient Beings #1588 presents viewers with an eerie and ghostly profile view of a male figure. In Thought Series #703 murky ripples of water give no clues as to what lies beneath their surface. These images, lacking narrative context and specificity, convey an accessible and metaphoric sense of loss therefore opening the works up to interpretation by the viewer.
[L. Dougherty, 2014]ProvenanceCreated New York, 1995; collection of the artist; [Julie Saul Gallery, New York]; Allen G. Thomas Jr., Wilson, NC, 1996; given to NCMA, 2014.

Published ReferencesBill Jacobson and Klaus Kertess, Bill Jacobson: 1989–1997 (Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishers, 1998), illus. 34.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Private Eye: Allen G. Thomas Jr. Photography Collection," September 13, 2014–March 22, 2015.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–May 1, 2023. Object Rights Statement

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