The Reading Warehouse

Catherine Wagner: Place, History, and the Archive presents a 40-year survey of the photographic work of Catherine Wagner (born 1953). Including examples from 19 of the artist's series, it is the first publication to survey Wagner's work from its beginnings in the mid-1970s to the present day. Her early work, which looked at architecture and its core materials, employed strategies she calls "archaeology in reverse"; this set off a career-long examination of the notion of construction in institutions as various as art museums, science labs, classrooms, the home and Disneyland. Scientific, cultural and natural histories are key realms of this exploration; working in series, Wagner explores the physical and conceptual structures of our world. Featuring an essay by curator Shoair Mavlian and a conversation between the artist and Stephen Shore, Place, History, and the Archive offers a thorough survey of Wagner's wide-ranging work.