Mark Johnstone's current exhibition at the Gilman Contemporary in Ketchum is his first show in Ketchum, though he has been photographing and exhibiting work throughout the country since 1968.
A photographer, writer, educator, curator and arts advocate, Johnstone's life has been dedicated to valuing, appreciating and promoting the arts. His first introduction to Sun Valley came from teaching and meeting western artists who had attended classes at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, which he had not visited. In 1978 Johnstone began a 10-year career as a contributor to Artweek and established himself as an art critic in the emerging Los Angeles art scene.
"When I arrived in Los Angeles there was no Getty, Los Angles County Museum of Art or Armand Hammer Museum," Johnstone said. "From '85 to '92, ten museums were added, and it was incredibly exciting to write about and meet the artists."
Johnstone has been the curator of over 60 exhibitions at galleries and museums in the United States and Europe, and was Vice-President and Exhibitions Curator for Security Pacific Bank in Los Angeles from 1987 to 1992. He has worked as a public art liaison between civic groups, corporations and city government since 1988, and was Administrator of the Public Art Program for the City of Los Angeles from 1995 to 2002.
"In 2001 I burned out on Los Angeles," Johnstone said. "I was looking around the west for jobs, but I didn't like the places. The west changed a great deal in the last 20 years. I came to visit friends in the area and moved to Hailey."
Johnstone likes his work to hang in a series or grouping and said he was always working on several series at once. The Gilman Contemporary is exhibiting a series of images Johnstone photographed while visiting Japan.
"I was involved with a gallery in Tokyo, Japan introducing California photographers to Japan," Johnstone said. "I was brought over several times."
Johnstone's color saturated photographs depict the many wall posters he saw while walking around the city. The posters were used as a form of advertising and news for cultural events and were changed every day. In the United States there are very few "walking" cities except for New York, which Johnstone also photographed.
"It was like photographing headlines on a newspaper, and I liked the layering and coloring," Johnstone said. "I paid attention to all those qualities."
Johnstone's work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Japan, and is in many private and public collections. He printed multiple pictures when he first began exhibiting and has saved boxes of vintage prints. He has street and cultural photography, which he printed as diptychs and triptychs, which pair images to gather in one whole photograph, which are voyeuristic and also contribute to his consistent metaphor of juxtaposing images and words.
"I still shoot a lot of film," Johnstone said. "Gilman is very excited to show black and white and color work from Japan, and it has lit a strong fire in me. I am transitioning and discovering what is interesting to do."
"Tokyo, Japan" by Mark Johnstone. Cibachrome print at Gilman Contemporary.
Mark Johnstone’s self-portrait of himself, left, and photographer Arnold Newman in Newman’s New York City living room in 1983.
