COPIA
I have always been interested in the little details that make up the routines and rituals of modern life, finding magical moments in the mundane. In 2001, consumer culture was redefined to include larger political and global implications: citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost our economy through shopping. The photographs enclosed herewith are from the COPIA series, on which I have been working since 2001. These photographs of excessive, corporate, and sometimes hyper-real retail spaces document the everyday activities of consumption and explores the roles we play in self-destruction, over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising. By scrutinizing these rituals, ones we often take for granted, I hope to help viewers in evaluating the increasing complexities of our contemporary world.
My intentions are to elicit compassion and empathy for the shopper by formally making the pictures elegant and beautiful, as we ultimately sees ourselves in these images. Most viewers live in the "modern" world and have been raised within a consumer-dominated culture. Certainly, this is how we live our lives today, but we may be in danger of not being responsive enough and becoming too placid in our privileges. What are the costs of our massive level of consumption?
COPIA: Plenty, a plentiful supply:
I. a. Plenty, abundance, a copious quantity.
b. Fullness, plenitude. Obs.
c. esp. of language: Copiousness, abundance, fullness, richness.
II. A transcript or reproduction of an original.
About Brian Ulrich
Brian Ulrich was born in 1971 in Northport, NY and now calls Chicago, IL his home. Brian earned his BFA in photography in 1996 at the University of Akron. Upon graduating, an internship at the Akron Art Museum led to a job at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York, where Brian studied the gallery's vast collection of vintage and modern photographs and a thorough library, which he credits as one of his most formidable educational experiences. Brian left New York for Cleveland, Ohio where he worked at the Cleveland Museum of Art and at the University of Akron. Teaching part-time at the University of Akron led him to pursue his MFA at Columbia College Chicago. While in Chicago, Brian teaches photography at Columbia College and Gallery 37 Arts Program.
The recipient of numerous scholarships, his work has been exhibited at the Sean Kelly Gallery (New York, NY), the Peter Miller Gallery (Chicago, IL), the Creative Arts Workshop (New Haven, CT), the Center for Photographic Arts (Carmel, CA), ArtChicago 2003 and 2004, and Silver Eye center for Photography (Pittsburgh, PA), and has been published in Adbusters Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Wired Magazine, Buffalo Magazine, Exklusiv Magazine, Alternative Press, and the Chicago Reader. His editorial projects include work for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, the Salvation Army, the Chicago Community Trust, and the New Yorker. Upcoming exhibitions include a group show at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, (January 2005) and a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (March 2005).