87 Suns From Flickr - 29 Visible by Penelope Umbrico

As part of a lecture series presented by the Camera Club of New York, 20x200 edition-maker Penelope Umbrico will be speaking and doing a Q&A tomorrow night at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Penelope's work, which deals largely with groups of images found on the internet or in catalogs, is conceptually rigorous and often humorous. Her 20x200 edition, 87 Suns From Flickr - 29 Visible, composites nearly 100 clichéd photographs of sunsets to create a symbol of the world's "most photographed" subject.

About the edition she writes:

Suns From Flickr is a project I started in 2006 when, looking for "the most photographed" subject, I found 541,795 photographs of sunsets searching "sunset" on the photo-sharing web site Flickr. At the time that seemed like a lot; today there are more than 4,786,139 hits for "sunset" on Flickr. I think it's peculiar that the sun — the quintessential life-giver, constant in our lives, symbol of enlightenment, spirituality, eternity, all things unreachable and ephemeral, omnipotent provider of optimism and vitamin D... and so ubiquitously photographed — is now subsumed to the internet — the most virtual of spaces equally infinite but within a closed digital circuit.

This cheeky investigation of the mass-produced image is present throughout Penelope's work, much more of which is available on her website. Also of note: though she has lectured far and wide, tomorrow should be special because Penelope has both graduated from and taught at SVA.

Penelope's 20x200 editions are available here and here. Proceeds from Moons go to benefit the Aperture Foundation.

Penelope Umbrico Lecture
Thursday, February 18, 7pm
The School of Visual Arts Amphitheatre
209 East 23rd Street (between 2nd/ 3rd Ave), Third Floor

Free to CCNY members, SVA students, faculty, and staff
General admission $5, $3 for other students with valid student ID