Embassy (day)

Location

Country: France
City: Paris
Place: British Embassy

This photographic image shows the garden of the British Embassy in Paris. Catherine Yass was commissioned to produce this work and "Embassy (evening)". She spent time there photographing various aspects of the building and gardens at different times of day. The heightened, intense colours of her works are produced by superimposing positive and negative transparencies onto one another and making tonal adjustments during the printing process. She discovered the creative potential of working in this way simply by chance, when an incorrectly loaded film was developed. Catherine Yass was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002.

Catherine Yass was born in London and studied at the Slade School of Art (1982–1986) and at Goldsmiths’ College (1989–1990). Yass is an artist who uses film and photography to document time and space, using her work to explore the psychological and formal properties of architecture and built environments. In 2002 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and she has participated in the judging panels for both The Jerwood Photography Prize and The Citibank Photography Prize. Her work, which has been widely exhibited internationally, is represented in public museum collections including the Tate, London; the Biblioteca Albertina, Leipzig; and The Jewish Museum, New York. Yass lives and works in London.

Places

France, Paris

Subjects

sculpture (as Subject), topography, tree, garden, lawn, embassy, government building, window

Materials & Techniques

LED, light-box, photograph (as object name), transparency, colour transparency

Artist

Catherine Yass (1963 - )

Title

Embassy (day)

Date

1999

Medium

Colour transparency and LED lightbox

Acquisition

Commissioned from the artist, February 1999

Provenance

Commissioned from the artist by the Government Art Collection in collaboration with the British Embassy, Paris

GAC number

17376/2