Bill Jacobson: A Series of Human Decisions

Bill Jacobson (born 1955) is widely known for his blurry black-and-white portrait photographs of the 1980s, which referenced the AIDS epidemic in their implications of fleeting presence and human fragility. Whether shooting figures, street scenes or landscapes, Jacobson has consistently projected a sensation of both personal and collective memories fading into oblivion. A Series of Human Decisions presents a new body of work as sharp as his previous work was immaterial, and signals a whole new approach to similarly melancholic imagery. Here, crystal-clear renderings of vacated, somewhat lonesome spaces, both private and industrial, inside and outside, intimate and alienating, convey the extreme constructedness of what surrounds us. As Jacobson explains, the title "refers to the idea that we live in a highly constructed world. The world is just that, a series of human decisions, one layered upon another over time. We move constantly from one fabricated arena to another." This monograph includes an in-depth interview between the artist and Ian Berry.