Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture


Vol 7, No 1 (2018)   |   ISSN 2153-5914 (online)   |   DOI 10.5195/contemp/2018.269 

http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu 

 

Looking/Not Looking 

Aaron Henderson 

 

About the Artist 

Aaron Henderson’s photographs, videos, and installations are inspired by the artist's visceral 

and intellectual interest in how the body moves through space. His projects articulate 

different facets of an ongoing critique of society's relationship to spectacle, technology, and 

performance. He believes that it is only thorough the process of examination—of ourselves 

and of our culture—that the past, present, and future can be fully understood.  

 

Well-acquainted with movement, Henderson threw himself into walls and off platforms for 

STREB Extreme Action, an acrobatic performance company from 2002 to 2006. His videos 

and installations have been presented at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Wexner Center, 

and many other museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Asia. His projection 

designs have been presented at Lincoln Center, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Institute of 

Contemporary Art (Boston) as well as at theaters and festivals around the world.  

 

Henderson is currently an associate professor in the Department of Studio Arts at the 

University of Pittsburgh. 

http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu/


 

 

Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture   http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu 

Vol 7, No 1 (2018)   |   ISSN 2153-5914 (online)   |   DOI 10.5195/contemp/2018.269 

 

My photographic series “Looking/Not Looking” 

(2018) is a collection of traces, reflections, and 

shadows captured in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s 

African Art/Art before 1300 galleries. Held apart 

from the rest of the collection, the corridor that 

houses these objects is fascinating due to the range 

of work collected there as well as for the ways this 

space differs from the rest of the museum. In my 

own work, I often set rigorous and specific 

parameters. Sometimes these rules are attempts to 

simplify complex situations, allowing me to focus on 

one aspect of a larger whole. Sometimes they are just games I play. In this instance, I knew 

that I wanted to avoid photographing the actual objects, instead focusing on the space itself. 

As I entered the galleries, I found myself struck by the beauty of the objects and the density 

of their display. Darker than the surrounding galleries, reflections and shadows dominate the 

space. The objects themselves seem to glow, with spotlights bouncing off their surfaces and 

glass encasing. Transparent cubes create structures that contain and protect the objects, which 

sit on nearly identical pedestals. Scuffs and fingerprints remind us that these are real spaces, 

despite the austere backgrounds. These photographs look around and between the objects, 

focusing on the space itself. They examine a gallery tucked away, but only capture glances of 

the treasures held within. 

 

 

Figure 1 

Aaron Henderson, Not Looking 4, 2018, Digital Photograph.  

 

 

 

 

Looking/Not Looking 

Aaron Henderson 

 

http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu/


7 8  L ook i n g / N o t  L ook i n g  

 

Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture   http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu 

Vol 7, No 1 (2018)   |   ISSN 2153-5914 (online)   |   DOI 10.5195/contemp/2018.269 

 

Figure 2  

Aaron Henderson, Not Looking 9, 2018, Digital Photograph.  

 

 

 

Figure 3  

Aaron Henderson, Not Looking 10, 2018, Digital Photograph.  

 

 

http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu/


7 9  A a r on  H e n d e r s on   

 

Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture   http://contemporaneity.pitt.edu 

Vol 7, No 1 (2018)   |   ISSN 2153-5194 (online)   |   DOI 10.5195/contemp/2018.269 

 

Figure 4  

Aaron Henderson, Not Looking 14, 2018, Digital Photograph.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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	Looking/Not Looking
	Looking/Not Looking