Explore the art of David Keating
Thought-provoking perspectives on personal, social and philosophical concerns
What Critics Are Saying
“Keating’s photoworks and text again achieve a high level of artistry by leaving almost as much unsaid as do characters in a Henry James novel”
— Alan Artner, Chicago Tribune
“The spare installation defies the quick take, but transcends the tedium of individual story. The pictures have the crisp detail of hindsight, the camera shake that jars our firmest attachments, the uncontrolled exposure we direct at the future… Keating conveys the notion that each of us influences things just by being alive. Reason enough to make art, to fight death.”
— Casey Fitzsimons, Artweek
“The artist’s poetic pairings of photo and text and the extremely personal yet dignified tone of his writing give [Keating’s work] an elegaic power. Witnessing this work is rather like making the stations of his personal cross.”
— Ann Elliott Sherman, San Jose Metro
“[Keating] offers poetic combinations of images that are both topical and highly personal… [he] shows us that neither photographs nor texts can wholly convey the fullness of an individual’s self, which dances only half materialized between words and images.”
— Bonnie McLaughlin, Chicago Reader
“The space between the object and the subject that allows for dialogue forcefully emerges in the work of such artists as Derek Jarman, David Keating, and David Wojnarowicz. Although rage is hardly absent from any of these men’s works, it is articulated through a dialectic of life and death, sexuality and asceticism, and the private sphere played against the public. What issues forth is a collective sense of hypocrisy, inaction, and our mortality.”
— James Crump, New Art Examiner
Narrative Installations
“Even though the piece is centered around mortality, [Keating] doesn’t alienate the viewer or wallow in self-pity. Keating’s art simply reaches out for understanding with a life-affirming gesture... This family story is arguably the show’s most poignant piece. It speaks of the difficult times when our will to live is tested. [It] tells us that perhaps the warmth of human connections is the only thing with any real weight to make our lives meaningful.”
—Neil Kendricks, San Diego Union-Tribune
“With autobiographical work, it has long been my suspicion that photographers employ fiction as easily, believably, and readily as any novelist. In 1989, the photographer David Keating constructed an extraordinary photo/text series, We look at a situation, about his mother’s alcoholism. Framed sheets of typewritten text tell the saga of the alcoholic’s life; period-framed sepia blowups of attractive, upper-middle-class people accompany each panel. Highly descriptive and gracefully written, the text’s analytical detachment, a distanced but acute observation — even the series title claims a controlled neutrality — lends the quality of fiction to the story.
“In fact, the text was written by the subject about herself….”
—Carla Williams, “Reading Deeper: The Legacy of Dick and Jane in the Work of Clarissa Sligh,” IMAGE: Journal of Photography and Motion Pictures of George Eastman House
about David Keating
DAVID KEATING grew up in Rye, NY, and currently lives in Albuquerque, NM. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University and an M.A. and an M.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of New Mexico. Between masters' degrees he studied at the California Institute of the Arts.
David Keating’s artwork has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the U.S., including solo shows at George Eastman Museum and the UNM Art Museum, and group shows at the Smithsonian, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts. His work has been written about and reproduced in a number of periodicals in the U.S. and Mexico, and is the subject of a Harvard University master’s thesis. Keating is also a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Photography.
