Dean Kessmann

Bio

Professor Kessmann's photographs–alternately made with cameras, scanners, camera-less darkroom processes, and screenshots from computer monitors–comment on image-making technologies, landscape photography, and contemporary consumer culture.  What remains consistent throughout Professor Kessmann’s practice is an intense interest in the relationships between abstraction and representation, physical objects and digital information, compression and expansion.  These creative research interests are also reflected in the courses that he teaches for the Studio Arts Program at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, where he is Professor of Photography.

Current Research

My current photographs, like most of my camera-based work, are made as I wander from one place to the next, mostly in and around Washington, DC.  Observational photography is the most straightforward way to describe my artistic practice.  Some of these photographs function as objective records with clearly recognizable subject matter that speak to the moment in which they were made, while others are more abstract and elusive.  Even though I think of my artistic practice as being primarily engrossed in the formal language of photography, the fact that I make photographs out in the world means that I’m nonetheless compelled to contend with content.  The exciting thing about working in this way—taking the time to meander with the sole purpose of being open to any and all situations that one might intentionally or inadvertently happen upon—is that I cannot know exactly what previously dormant meaning may arise when two or more of my photographs are placed in close proximity to each other.  Ultimately, my hope is that the intuitive impulse that moves my work forward is balanced with a critical approach that fuses the lessons learned with the happenstance that is part and parcel of the creative process.  Thus, I’m content to focus on overlooked details that, while remaining tied to the specificity of time and place and the quotidian aspects of our daily lives, may on occasion become untethered from reality, at times enigmatic, and always open to interpretation.

Classes Taught

Professor Kessmann teaches darkroom and digital photography courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  He also teaches MFA Studio and Creative Research and Studio Visits for the MFA in Creative Art Practices program.

Exhibitions

Professor Kessmann has had one-person exhibitions at Blackrock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD, The Bascom Center for the Visual Arts, Highlands, NC, The Photography Gallery at Riley Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, Furthermore, Washington, DC, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO, Humanity Center Galleries, California State University, Chico, CA, White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO, and the Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.  In September of 2021, he had a career survey titled “Dean Kessmann: Light Years, Chemical Days, and Digital Seconds” at VisArts in Rockville, MD, which was curated by Kristen Hileman.

Professor Kessmann’s work has been shown in two and three-person exhibitions at MONO PRACTICE, Baltimore, MD, Duet, St. Louis, MO, School 33 Art Center, Baltimore, MD, and 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA. Additionally, he has been included in group exhibitions at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME, American University Museum, Washington, DC, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, Cerasoli Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St. Louis, MO, The Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA, and Project Row Houses, Houston, TX, among others.

Many institutions have collected Professor Kessmann's work, such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Baltimore Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, The Phillips Collection, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and the Orlando Museum of Art.

His exhibitions have been reviewed in a variety of publications, including Art Papers, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and ARTFORUM magazine.

Education

BLS, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
MFA, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale