Blue Tree

Artist Kerry Skarbakka American, born 1970

Date2002

MediumChromogenic print

Dimensions24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of the artist in honor of Dr. Lawrence J. Wheeler

Object number2014.4

On View

Not on view

Label TextThese works are from a series of self-portraits by Kerry Skarbakka titled The Struggle to Right Oneself. The photographs document elaborately staged performances in which Skarbakka uses climbing equipment—cables, pulleys, and harnesses—to suspend himself in extremely precarious positions: perched on the edge of a railroad trestle or cliff, falling into a canyon or off the side of a building, floating above his bed. He then uses a computer to edit out the staging equipment before he prints the final image, so that he appears to be magically levitating or dramatically leaping to an unknown end.

Skarbakka says this series “questions what it means to resist the struggle, to simply let go, and the consequences of holding on. The images stand as reminders that we are all vulnerable to losing our footing and grasp, symbolizing the precarious balancing act between the struggle against our desire to survive and our fantasy to transcend our humanness.”
[L. Dougherty, 2007]ProvenanceCreated 2002; collection of the artist, Corvallis, OR; given to NCMA, 2014.Published ReferencesWayne Koestenbaum, “Kerry Skarbakka: Falling,” Aperture no. 179 (Summer 2005), 60–65, illus. (color) 61.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Director’s Cut: Recent Photography Gifts to the NCMA,” April 4–September 13, 2015.
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