_Catherine Yass - Passage
_8 July to 28 August 2005

Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam’s exhibition Passage introduces the work of British photographer Catherine Yass to the Dutch public. Yass is well known for her experiments with photographic techniques, through which she has developed her characteristic use of colour. Most of her work is shown in large light boxes. Catherine Yass’s visual images have an astonishing psychological quality. This is due partly to her choice of subject: corridors, cells and stairs are recurring themes. Equally important is her technique. By combining a colour positive with a negative of the same subject, and printing the two together, a fascinating colour effect is achieved. Displaying the result in a large light box emphasises the surreal and intense luminescent quality. Catherine Yass’s work is about mental rather than physical space.

Much of the Foam exhibition is devoted to a selection from the Passage series, created in 1994. This work features views of corridors in a psychiatric hospital in London. The bizarre light and the empty, archetypical corridors create an ominous, sinister atmosphere. As if the corridors are not part of the architecture, but psychological, pulsating arteries of a living organism. Yass transforms the web of corridors into a shimmering, magical reality.

In her pictures of cells, capsules, stairways and corridors Yass consciously chooses subjects that evoke a powerful sense of claustrophobia, or form a link between two areas. Gangways, crossings and passages represent mental processes in her work, where architecture is above all a metaphor. They are like x-ray photos of a subject, revealing the underlying skeleton. Indeed, Yass’s work is often associated with the subconscious and the spiritual.

A striking aspect of the show is a recent series on the wall dividing Israel and the occupied territories. Here the impossibility of proceeding any further, and separation from the rest of the land are the central themes.

Catherine Yass was born in London in 1963. She studied at Slade School of Art in London and graduated in 1990 with a Master of Arts at Goldsmiths College in London. In addition to photography, Yass has also worked with film. Yass was nominated in 2002 for the Turner Prize.

Foam is supported by the Stichting DOEN, T-Mobile and de VandenEnde Foundation