Empire

Le livre

Black and white silver prints by Gossage taken in Washington D.C. of the Capitol Mall, adjacent monuments and official buildings between 1987 and 1993. Vogel's photographs are culled from an album (owned by Gossage) of albumen prints made in Egypt on an archeological expedition sponsored by the German government in 1868. As excerpted from Empire: "I photographed the places that government uses to preserve its past and, by implication, lay claims to its current power. This is, of course, exactly what Dr. Vogel photographed when he was sent by the Kaiser to Egypt to bring back pictures of a great and ancient civilization. Vogel's technique was to go closer than had anyone before him (into the tombs by the light of magnesium flares or revolving mirrors) -- whereas I was to push for greater distance." Frustrated by photography's insistence on the present and in an attempt to shift the immediate into history, Gossage optically distances himself from his subject by constructing a hand-made telephoto lens with a 1200-millimeter focal length and photographs with surveillance film. Empire investigates, albeit symbolically, the architectural fortresses constructed by great civilizations for the promotion and preservation of authority.