Necker Cube, Penland, North Carolina (from the series Altered Landscapes)
Artist
John Pfahl
(American, 1939 - 2020)
Date1975 printed 1977
MediumChromognic print
DimensionsImage: 7 3/4 × 10 in. (19.7 × 25.4 cm)
Support: 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm)
Frame: 17 × 14 in. (43.2 × 35.6 cm)
Support: 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm)
Frame: 17 × 14 in. (43.2 × 35.6 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Bobbie Foshay, 2017
Object number2017.24.29
DescriptionClose view of join between two walls. One is reddish and has a glowing bare light bulb at its approximate center. Around and above the bulb are red lines in the shape of a drawing of a cube.eMuseum Notes
Pfahl’s
ongoing interest in the human imprint on the landscape takes a more
intellectual turn in his series “Altered Landscapes” from the mid-1970s. Each
of these images features an intervention by the artist that is incorporated
into the ordinary scenery. By photographing his alterations to the landscape in
a straightforward manner, Pfahl plays with our perceptions and intentionally disorients his audience.
See 1986.119.1 for another image from this series.
The photograph was made in Penland, North Carolina.
See John Pfahl, “Altered Landscapes” (Friends of Photography, 1981).
A Necker Cube is an optical illusion first published as a rhomboid in 1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker.
Known as an educator as well as a photographer, Pfahl spent much of his adult life in upstate New York where he taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Visual Studies Workshop, and the University of Buffalo. He has also taught at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In 2009, Pfahl received the Honored Educator of the Year award from the Society for Photographic Education.
On View
Not on view
Library Projection, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida (from the series Altered Landscapes)
John Pfahl
1975 printed 1977
John Pfahl
1975 printed 1977
John Pfahl
1975, printed 1977
John Pfahl
October 1977
