Artist
Caleb Cole(American, born 1981)American, born 1981
CultureAmerican
Titles
- Trace (study)
Date2018, printed 2022
MediumInkjet print
DimensionsImage: 26 13/16 × 19 11/16 in. (68.1 × 50 cm)
Sheet: 30 1/8 × 24 in. (76.5 × 61 cm)
Sheet: 30 1/8 × 24 in. (76.5 × 61 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Carl Niendorff
Object number2022.240
Not on view
Explore Further
Department
PhotographyObject Type
The photographs in Caleb Cole’s series Traces began as images in gay men’s magazines of the 1980s and 1990s—the height of the AIDS epidemic. In an act oscillating between tenderness and violence, Cole excised the male figures from their respective scenes, filling in the void with collaged elements that reproduce parts of the existing photograph. The resulting pictures poetically allude to the shadows of a generation lost to the AIDS crisis and address issues of anonymity, vulnerability, and visibility as Cole considers the visual lineage of queer bodies in the present.
ProvenanceThe artist; [Foto Relevance, Houston]; purchased by MFAH, 2022.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed in black ink, verso, lower right: Caleb // Cole // 2022
Signed in black ink, verso, lower right: Caleb // Cole // 2022
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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Caleb Stein
2023, printed 2023
Inkjet print
2024.317