Brian Ulrich's large-scale photographs engage the excesses and peculiarities of American consumer culture. Begun in 2001 in response to the U.S government's call to citizens to bolster the economy through shopping, the ongoing Copia series offers a penetrating look at life as usual in commercial settings. The images locate private moments in busy public environments that are essentially enclosed virtual worlds, such as "big-box" retailers and thrift stores. Finding a mix of banality and humanity in the interactions within these spaces, the images invite the viewer to scrutinize and assess familiar rituals of consumption, while maintaining empathy for the individuals who act as our photographic stand-ins. The common activities portrayed in these images trace the contours of an ambivalent cultural psyche, and present the patterns of a society in which purchasing is equated, at least rhetorically, with collective power or patriotism.
Brian Ulrich received an MFA in photography from Columbia College, Chicago, where he currently teaches. His work has been exhibited at numerous venues throughout the United States including a 2005 solo show at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, as part of their exhibition series 12 x 12: New Artists/New Work. A book of Ulrich's s images will be published by Aperture in 2006.
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