Bio
Ken Schles
Born: Brooklyn, New York. 1960.
Ken endeavours to understand the long and complex relationship we have to images.
He realizes that images can speak to us in complex ways apart from as well as through language. Images sometimes touch us deeply and personally, and can, potentially, reveal undeniable and difficult truths or contain unspeakable beauty. Ken knows there are seemingly irreconcilable contradictions embedded within the photographic experience and has spent many years exploring the rhythm of its syntax. Compelled by this quest, he (perhaps naively) endeavors to extend the scope of photographic expression to encompass the complexity of human thought.
Ken enjoys working on projects in book form. He feels the intimacy of books provide an almost perfect medium for the photographic
experience.
Ken studied photography at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science
and Art with William Gedney, Len Jenshel and Larry Fink, and studied additionally with the artists Reuben Kadish, Hans Haacke and
Martha Rosler, graduating in 1982. He was also briefly a student of the legendary Lisette Model at the New
School for Social Research. Prior to his graduation he began working for Gilles Peress.
After graduating he
turned his camera toward the world and began the task
of asking questions. To this day Ken's work displays a strong connection to
the tradition of documentary photography but also works within a
conceptual framework. He has exhibited his work internationally (most notably
through Noorderlicht in The Netherlands and the FOAM in Amsterdam and
MoMA in NY) and has enjoyed much critical success.
Ken Schles photographs. He talks and writes about that experience as well. His books are considered “intellectual milestones in photography.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). His most recent book, A New History of Photography, was a finalist for the 2009 Rencontres d’Arles Photographie Contemporary Book Award. Vince Aletti in the New Yorker called his book Invisible City, "hellishly brilliant". Invisible City was also included in MoMA’s More Than One Photography exhibition and listed in M+M Auer’s survey of photographic books. It has influenced a generation of photographers and is a favorite of the photographer
Robert Frank. Books of his have appeared on “notable” lists published by Photo-Eye and the Sunday New York Times Book Review. He is included in private and public collections such as MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, among others.
Ken Schles is a NYFA Fellow and is an adjunct teacher at ICP.
