Vera Lutter Museum in the Camera

Documenting Vera Lutter's ambitious residency at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this book traces the artist's process and features images from her two-year-long photography project.

Vera Lutter's work has taken her and her pinhole camera all over the world, most recently to LACMA as its artist in residence. Stationing a mobile camera obscura outside the museum, Lutter captured the exterior of the campus buildings in images that transform the mid- and late-20th century architecture. Using an enormous camera, custom-built into the museum's Old Masters gallery, she captured the long perspective on the classically installed room, echoing historical paintings of museum interiors. Finally, with four smaller cameras, Lutter photographed various works in the LACMA collection, transforming colorful paintings into ethereal black-and-white images. In contrast to digitized photography, which allows artists to fine-tune and perfect their product, Lutter's analogue pinhole photographs are a refreshing reminder of the medium's origins.

Published with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

JENNIFER KING is Associate Curator of Contemporary Projects at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

NOAM M. ELCOTT is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University

MICHAEL GOVAN is CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.