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Thought Series #703
Thought Series #703

Thought Series #703

Artist Bill Jacobson American, born 1955
Date1993–1996
MediumGelatin-silver print
Dimensions36 x 28 in. (91.4 x 71.1 cm)
Frame: 37 1/2 x 29 3/4 in. (95.3 x 75.6 cm)
ClassificationsPhotography
Credit LineGift of Allen G. Thomas Jr. in honor of Lawrence J. Wheeler
Object number2014.14.35
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, 1993–1996; collection of the artist; [Julie Saul Gallery, New York]; Allen G. Thomas Jr., Wilson, NC, 1998; given to NCMA, 2014.
Published ReferencesBill Jacobson and Klaus Kertess, Bill Jacobson: 1989–1997 (Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishers, 1998), illus. 48.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Private Eye: Allen G. Thomas Jr. Photography Collection," September 13, 2014–March 22, 2015. Object Rights Statement

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