Brian Alfred: Surveillance

The first solo exhibition in Zürich of acclaimed American artist Brian Alfred explored the ambiguities and edginess of the acts of looking and of being.

Brian Alfred is a resident of Brooklyn, New York, from where commuters to Manhattan are captured on surveillance cameras for the large majority of their journey. The growing prevalence of security cameras is a worldwide phenomenon, which led the artist to ask who is watching who, when, and where?

Through the images in the exhibition the artist examined the different ways that surveillance has become part of our everyday public environment. Alfred is interested in how the awareness of being watched, or believing one is being watched, alters people's behaviour, to both positive and negative effect. What he presents us with is non-judgemental renderings of the aesthetics of surveillance, leaving conclusions - about paranoia, politics, increased safety, invasion of privacy - up to the viewer.

Working with paintings, collages and animations that fluidly echo each other, Alfred captures the eeriness of the surveillance theme, while breaking down the divisions between the various media he employs in his working practice.

Further describing the sometimes uneasy relationship between people and their environment the artist has installed security cameras throughout the galleries of the exhibition that follow viewers throughout the rooms. Alfred also created a web-animation, which was featured on the Haunch of Venison website.

Born in 1974, Alfred graduated from Yale University with an MFA in 1999 and has won numerous awards for his work including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the NYFA Inspiration Award, and the Skowhegan Match Scholarship. He has exhibited widely internationally, and is represented in many important collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Brian Alfred
Surveillance