Clay Ketter: Pirate Lane 2007
Clay Ketter’s Pirate Lane (2007) is part of the photographic series Gulf Coast Slabs, documenting the foundations of homes on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The work can be understood as both testimony and reminder of human vulnerability and interdependence
Climate change, hurricanes, and global crises transcend borders and national identities. The artwork raises questions about climate change, responsibility, and the role art can play in addressing global challenges within an academic environment such as the Stockholm School of Economics.
Clay Ketter (born 1961 in Brunswick, Maine) works across painting, sculpture, and photography. His artistic practice is characterized by precision and material experimentation, often challenging the boundaries between craftsmanship and fine art. Since the late 1980s, Sweden has been his home, while his work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, and art institutions.
Early in his career, Ketter experimented with materials not traditionally associated with fine art. His Wall Paintings—including one in the SSE Permanent Collection in the north corridor on the ground floor—and Trace Paintings question distinctions between construction, craftsmanship, and artistic practice.
Over time, Ketter’s work has increasingly focused on existential themes. Human attempts to protect against natural forces and instability form an important backdrop to Gulf Coast Slabs as well as to his assemblages of dollhouses. Through traces of destruction and human presence, his work reflects on the fragility of existence.
The work Pirate Lane belongs to the Gulf Coast Slabs series, created after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Gulf Coast in 2005. Following reports of the destruction, Ketter traveled to the region to document the remains of homes and neighborhoods. The titles of the works reference street names, addresses, and, in some cases, former residents, grounding the works in specific locations and histories.
“...with their ominous sharpness, their unsentimental documentary brute force, Gulf Coast Slabs cast an unexpected light on the artist’s entire oeuvre.”
— Dan Jönsson, from Under the Volcano, Gulf Coast Slabs (2008)
Clay Ketter, Pirate Lane, 2007
178 × 315 cm
Diasec-mounted C-print
Clay Ketter is represented by Cecilia Hillström Gallery in Stockholm.
The work was donated to SSE by alumnus Lars Förberg and Lena Förberg in collaboration with alumna Cecilia Hillström.
Front-page photo by Mikael Olsson