ABOUT
NEWSLETTER
Elena Dorfman is a Los Angeles-based visual artist working in photography, video, and tapestry. Throughout her career, she has explored marginalized communities and neglected landscapes through process and materiality. Prior to her landscape work, Dorfman was known for her intensive portrait series that combined beauty with atypical subject matter. Identity—sexual, social, cultural and environmental—is a root element of her work.
Her artistic practice which includes recording—through photography and film—the complexity of physical settings by layering dozens, sometimes hundreds, of images, both original and archival, with maps, texts and other ephemera gathered over the course of years. Through this process, she blends nature and artifice, depicting evidence of past actions, uses, and habitation. Her work has endeavored to record the laborious excavation of events—both natural and human—over time. Recently, in an effort to weave the biographical with the socio-political, she created large scale Jacquard tapestries from high resolution photographs of Albania’s Accursed Mountain region.
Continuing her multi-layered approach, Dorfman‘s “Sublime: The L.A. River”, 2015, is a series of conceptual landscape images made along the Los Angeles River, home to early settlers of the western metropolis. Encased in concrete in 1938 to tame the devastating floods of the early 20th century, the river has since largely been ignored. Dorfman’s photographs are elaborate constructs that rely on a series of intentional aesthetic decisions, loosely referencing the allegorical narratives of the paintings by the Hudson River School.
“Empire Falling”, Dorfman’s 2013 critically acclaimed monograph marked her expansion from portraiture to conceptual landscape photography. This series explores abandoned and active rock quarries throughout the American Midwest. Here, Dorfman utilizes her unique process of assembling hundreds of images made over the course of years and numerous locations into cohesive vistas that present a novel and contemporary view of an evolving landscape.
“The Pleasure Park”, 2009, is a comprehensive look at the world of thoroughbred horse racing. The focus of this series is a 5-minute panoramic film that both reconstructs a horse race and explores the milieu of the track and racing as an industry. The 3-channel video installation places the spectator directly in the racing environment, creating an overwhelming sensation of the beauty of the physical form and sheer force of man and animal. As companion pieces, Dorfman produced a 1-hour video that gazes quietly at jockeys, revealing both their power and vulnerability: and portraits of racehorses in a studio setting complete the series.
In her 2007 series, “Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay”, Dorfman explores the world of Costume Play–a pop-cultural phenomenon exported from Japan. The subjects in this series are extreme fans who frequent conventions worldwide, and who dress up and live as characters from video games, Japanese manga, and anime.
“Still Lovers”, a series of photographs that brought Dorfman international acclaim, focuses on the domestic lives of men and women who devote themselves to life-size, anatomically correct sex dolls. The artist’s intent was not to exploit the deviancy of those who had relationships with artificial sexual surrogates, but rather to reveal the fascinating secret world of intimacy between flesh and silicone. In 2019, the Fondazione Prada exhibited this series in a two-person show entitled, Surrogati: Un Amore Ideale (Surrogate: A Love Ideal). Twenty years after this work was first created, interest in the representation and ubiquity of replacement human beings has only increased.
In 2013 and 2014, Dorfman was invited by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to photograph Syrians fleeing war in an attempt to help shed light on the crisis. Dorfman’s impactful series, “Syria’s Lost Generation” reveals through pictures and recorded first-person narratives the plight of fourteen young adult refugees. This series has been exhibited at numerous colleges and universities. A multimedia installation comprised from Dorfman’s images and recordings is on permanent display at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Genocide.
A finalist for the BMW Prize, Paris Photo, Elena Dorfman’s photographs and video installations have been exhibited in both the U.S. and worldwide at venues, including the Fondazione Prada, Milan; Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; the Triennale di Milano, Milan; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her work is held in numerous collections including the Denver Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, and Bass Art Museum. Her work is the subject of three monographs, “Empire Falling” (Damiani, 2013), “Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay” (Aperture, 2007), “Still Lovers” (Channel, 2005).
Dorfman lectures regularly at museums and universities. In the fall of 2023 she will teach a Masterclass for the Zavattini Prize students of the Scuola D’Arte Cinematografica, Rome. Her work has been included in several symposia, including, In the Uncanny Valley: Encounters in Arts, Media and Continental Philosophy (University for the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland) and Refugees Endure: WWII Displaced Persons versus Today and the Lessons Learned Conference (Tulane School of Law, New Orleans, LA). Dorfman’s work from “Still Lovers” was the focus of several documentary films and the inspiration for the feature film, “Lars and the Real Girl”.
LIST OF EXHIBITIONS
2022 / 2023
Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO; “45 Years: Part 1” (group)
Frederick Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL; “45th Anniversary Show” (group)
2021 / 2022
Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal, Canada; "A New Society" (group)
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA; Repro Japan: Technologies of Japanese Popular Culture from the 1700s to Today (group)
MIM Gallery Los Angeles, California, “Knot” (group)
2020
Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX, “Keeper of the Hearth: Roland Barthes Unseen Photograph (group)
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA, “Created in Place” (online, group)
Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO, “High Stakes” (online, group)
2019
Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy, “Surrogati: Un Amore Ideale” (two-person)
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA, “Still Lovers & Transmutations”
2018
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, “New Territory: Landscape Photography Today” (group)
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, LA, CA, Sublime: LA River (group)
Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL, “Still Crazy”, Valbona 1 (group)
Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO, “Transmutations”
Art in Embassies, Dakar, Senegal, “Empire Falling”
2017
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA, “The Origin of the New World”
The Berrie Center Art Gallery, Ramapo College, NJ, “Forms & Effects: Ukiyo-e to Anime” (group)
Mills College Art Museum, Mills College, Oakland, CA, “Syria’s Lost Generation”
2016
Pier 24, San Francisco, CA, “Collected” (group)
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Sublime: the LA River”
Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, “Syria’s Lost Generation”
2015
Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO, “Sublime: The LA River”
Alice F. & Harris K. Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, “Sublime: the LA River”
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, “Unknown Elements” (group)
LACMA, Los Angeles, CA, Artist’s Respond, Sublime 1 from the “LA River” series
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA “Personalities: Fantasy & Identity in
Photography and New Media” (group)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, “The Lost Generation: Portraits from the Middle East”
2014
Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO “Empire Falling”
2013
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Desire” (group)
Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, NY, “Alchemical” (group)
21c Museum, Bentonville, AK, “Hybridity: The New Frontier” (group)
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Empire Falling”
2010
SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870” (group)
Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy, “Still Lovers” (group)
MoMA, New York, NY, “The 1%” multi-panel video installation for “Small Scale/Big Change”
Ann Tower Gallery, Lexington, KY, “The Pleasure Park”
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA, “The Pleasure Park”, photographs and multi-channel video installation
U.S. Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden, “Transparency and Transformations in Contemporary Art” (group) 21c Museum, Louisville, KY, “The Pleasure Park,” photographs and multi-channel video installation 2009
Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Florence, Italy, “Manipulated Reality” (group)
2008
Camera Obscura Galeria de Arte, Madrid, Spain, “Fandomania” photographs and video animation
JRB Gallery, Oklahoma City, OK, “Fandomania”
2007
Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY, “Fandomania”, photographs and video installation
2006
Robert Klein Gallery, Boston, MA, “Still Lovers”
Martha Schneider Gallery, Chicago, IL, “Still Lovers”
Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York, NY, “Oh, You Beautifulful Doll” (group)
21c Museum, Louisville, KY, “Inaugural Exhibition”
2005
Trierenberg AG, Linz, Austria, “New Art, New York: Reflections on the Human Condition” (group)
Belfast Exposed, Belfast, Ireland, “Still Lovers”
The Royal Pavilion, Libraries and Museums, Brighton & Hove, Brighton, England, “Guys and Dolls” Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY, “Still Lovers”
2004
SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, “Recent Acquisitions” (group)
New York Arts Magazine Gallery, New York, NY “AC” (group)
2003
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA, “Valley of the Dolls” (group)
Camerawork, San Francisco, CA, “Exploring Intimacy” (group)
MONOGRAPHS
2013
Empire Falling, text by Kevin Moore, Diamani, Bolonia, Italy
2007
Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay, text by Carlo McCormick, Aperture, New York, NY
2005
Still Lovers, text by Elisabeth Alexandre, Channel Photographics, New York, NY
Des Poupees et des hommes, text by Elisabeth Alexandre, La Musardine, Paris, France
2002
Here & Now: Stories of Survival, photographs and interviews by Elena Dorfman, Avalon, New York, NY
1999
The C-Word: Teenagers & their Families Living with Cancer, NewSage, Portland, OR
VIDEO
2014
“Vincent”, 7 minute video produced for Bad Robot and the Children’s Defense Fund
2010
“The 1%”, 3-minute, 2-panel video for “Small Scale/Big Change,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2009
“The Pleasure Park”, 5-minute panoramic film with original score The Pleasure Park: “The Jockeys”, 1-hour video loop
2007
“Costume Play”, 5-minute video animation with original score
SELECT PRESS
Aoife Rosenmeyer, “We Are the Robots”, Arts Monthly magazine, May 2020
Todd Meyers, “Critic’s Pick”, Still Lovers and Transmutations, ArtForum, March 15, 2019
Melissa Harris, “A Surrogate for Love”, Aperture, March 1, 2019
Benoit Loiseau, “These photographers document hyper-realistic dolls as substitutes for love”, February 28, 2019
“Jamie Diamond ed Elena Dorfman: fotografia e surrogati amorosi”, Askanews Milano, February 20, 2019
Miss Rosen, “Documenting Unconventional love in the 21st Century” Huck, February 20, 2019
Siobhan Reid, “The Prada Foundation’s New Exhibition is One of Their Most Provocative Yet”, Travel + Leisure, February 20, 2019
Nicoletta Travi, “Plastica che ci riempi il cuore”, Il maschile del Sole 24 ORE, February 19, 2019
Nicoletta Orlandi Posti, “Figli, fidanzate ed amici: quando le bambole sostituiscono l’amore”, Libero, February 20, 2019
Elisabetta Muritti,”Questa Specie D’amore”. D la Republica, February 16, 2019
Cristiana Campanini, “Uomini e bambole una relazione d’amore” La Republica, February 20, 2019
Surrogati. Un Amore Ideale., Artelab, February 14, 2019
Jordan Anderson, “Fondazione Prada: ‘Surrogati — Un Amore Ideale’”, Twin, February 12, 2019
Clémentine Mercier, “Pour le meilleur et pour la cire”, Libération, February 9, 2019
Cristina D’Antonio, “Benvenuti nel Paese delle bambole”, GQ Italia, February 5, 2019
Alessia Glaviano, “Amore E Silicone”, Vogue Italia, February 2019
Stefano Bucci, “Vivere con una bambola”, La Lettura, February 3, 2019
All’Osservatorio di Fondazione Prada la mostra “Surrogati. Un amore ideale”, In Exhibit, January 29, 2019
Arte a Milano – Fondazione Prada – Apre “Surrogati. Un amore ideale”, Donne Cultura, February 20, 2019
Surrogati. Un Amore Ideale., Yatzer, February 2019
Surrogati. Un Amore Ideale., insideart.eu, January 25, 2019
Surrogati. Un Amore Ideale., arte.it, February 2019
Ada Masoero, The World of Dolls, Il Giornale dell’Arte, February 2019
The Exhibition that Tells the Love Between Human Beings and Dolls, Elle Decor Italia, February 20, 2019
All facets of love on display, Vogue Ukraine, January 18, 2019
All facets of love on display, Vogue Russia, January 11, 2019
Simon Blackburn, “Because You’re Worth It” Attenzione Magazine, Spring 2019
Michael Heitz, “Origin of the New World” DIAPHANES MAGAZINE No. 5, Fall/Winter 2018/2019
Grace Banks, “Play With Me” featuring Still Lovers, Fall 2018
Michael Paglia, “Humanitie’s Assault on Nature” Westword, April 4, 2018
Gabriella Angeleti, ”Origin of the World 2.0 for the age of Trump,” Art Newspaper, April 6, 2017
Sarah Burke, “At Mills, Portraits of Teen Syrian Refugees Humanize Conflict”, KQED Arts, February 16, 2017
Charles Desmarais, “Photography Show a Snapshot of Collectors’ Selves”, San Francisco Chronicle, June 3, 2016
Sura Wood, “Embarcadero Photography Pilgrimage”, June 16, 2016
Leora Lutz, “Sublime: The LA River”, Art Ltd., March 2016
Liesl Bradner, “Sublime“, The Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2016
Judith Turner-Yamamoto, “Wandering in the Uncanny Valley”, Photographer’s Forum, spring, 2016
Germano Celant, Fotografia maledetta e non, “Still Lovers”, Feltrinelli, 2015
Dzana Tsomondo, “Stolen Youth”, PDN, September 2015
Tema Stauffer, “Syria’s Lost Generation”, American Photo, August 4, 2015
Shepherd, Dan, “Elena Dorfman: Empire Falling and River”, LenScratch, July 10, 2014
Marquad Smith, The Erotic Doll: A Modern Fetish, Yale University Press, 2014
Dana Jennings, “Dreamscapes, Abysses And Radiation”, The New York Times, Paper Gallery, August 23, 2013
Jonathon Keats, “When Photographers are Neuroscientists”, Nautilus, Fall 2013
Vince Aletti, “Alchemical”, The New Yorker, August 5, 2013
Conor Risch, “Built Landscapes: Empire Falling”, PDN, April 22 2013
Exposed: Voyeruism, Survelliance, and the Camera Since 1870; SFMOMA publication, 2010
Cherie Louis Turner, Art Ltd. “The Pleasure Park,” July/Aug 2010
Conor Riess, Photo District News: Exposures, “The Pleasure Park,” June 2010
Clayton Maxwell, “The Pleasure Park,” Eyemazing Issue 01-2010
Christopher Bolton, “A Cosplay Photography Sampler,” Mechademia 5: Fanthropologies, Fall 2010
“Elena Dorfman,” Realta Manipolate, Palazzio Strozzi, 2009
Reed Albergotti, “For Exhibit”, The Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2000
Le Journal de La Photograhie, “Empire Falling,” March 1, 2013
Kenneth Baker, “Elena Dorfman at Modernism”. San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2013
“New Work,” Art Daily, April 30, 2009
“Fandomania,” Exit Magazine “The Anime Within,” Mother Jones Magazine, Nov/Dec 2007
Elisabetta Piatti, “Fandomania,” Zoom, Sept/Oct. 2007
Karen Leigh, “Character Studies,” Entertainment Weekly, June 1, 2007
Jonathon Keats, “The Talk,” San Francisco Magazine, June 2007
“Fandomania,” Jane magazine, June/July 2007
“State of the Art,” Pop Photo, May 29, 2007
“Fandomania,” Jane magazine, June/July 2007
David Lipke, “The Underground World of Cosplay,” DNR, April 23, 2007
Maura Egan, “Imaginary Friends,” New York Times Style Magazine, Spring Anna Holtzman, “Elena Dorfman: Fandomania,” Eyemazing, 2007
Bo Sondergaard, “Scener fra et dukkehjem,” Magasinet, Denmark Michael Workman, “Eye Exam Valley of the Dolls,” Newcity Chicago, May 26, 2006
Cassie Riger, “Still Lovers Book Review,” Camerawork, volume 33, Spring/Summer 2006
Meaghan Laslockey, “Just Like A Woman,” Courrier (Japon), June 1, 2006
Sacha Ettinger Epstein, “Guys and Dolls,” Black + White, (Australia), May 2006
Slywia Czubkowska, “LALA Mida,” Przekroj (Poland), No 6/3164, March 2006
Cate McQuaid, “It’s Not What It Looks Like,” Boston Globe, March 9, 2006
Anu Partanen, “Taydelliset naiset,” Image (Norway), March 2006
Felicity Robinson, “Amori di Plastica,” Marie Claire, (Italy), March, 2006
Ian Sattler, “The Fiction We Live,” Swindle, Issue No. 5, January 2006.
Susan Morgan, “Road Less Traveled: Elena Dorfman, Still Lovers,” Aperture, November/December 2005
Ilaria Bernardini, “Baciami Stupido,” Rolling Stone (Italy), December 2005
William Hannigan, “Hot Books,” Hotshoe, October/November 2005
Meghan Lasloky, “Just Like A Woman,” Salon.com, October 11, 2005
“Agenda,” Vogue (France) Atûo 2005
Gaël Le Bellego & Julien Blanc-Gras, “Génération Real Dolls,” Max (France), Septembre 2005
“In Play,” Radar Magazine, September/October 2005.
Catherine Castro, “Poupees X,” Marie Claire Homme (France) October 2005
Amanda Doenitz, “Are Skin Pics the Latest Aphrodisiac?” Art on Paper, September/October 2005
Katherine Nguyen, “Risqué Reading,” Picture Magazine, July/August 2005
Werner Bartens, “Lust Aus Dem Labor,” SZ Wissen (Switzerland) May 2005
Gabriela Weiner, “Peinando La Muneca,” Paula, Chili, March 2005
James Gardner, “Art Attack,” New York Post, February 26, 2005
Marta Rebón, “Amor de Plástico,”Lateral Revista de Cultura, Febrero 2005
Julia Morton, “Elena Dorfman,” New York Press, February 16, 2005
Vince Aletti, “Elena Dorfman,” Village Voice, February 2, 2005
“New York,” Photography (France), Jan/Feb. 2005
Kenneth Baker, “Reviews:National,” Art News, January, 2005
“Paris Photo 2004,” Photo (France), November 2004
Suzy Menkes, “At Paris Photo, a Focus on the Power of Women,” International Herald Tribune, 9 November 2004
Simon Hewitt, “At the Fair,” Art & Auction, November 2004
Beatrice de Rochebouet, “Le Pari Contempoain de Paris Photo,” Figaro, 11 November 2004
Anna Holtzman, “Elena Dorfman: Still Lovers,” Eyemazing Gallery 31, Fall 2004
“Best Photography Project,” San Francisco Magazine, October 2004
Kenneth Baker, “Getting Intimate with Guys and ‘Dolls.'” San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2003 Marisa S. Olson,” ‘Valley of the Dolls’ At Modernism,” Artweek, September 2003,
Volume 34, Issue 7 “Locating Intimacy: The Space Between,” Camerawork, Fall 2003
“What a Doll!” Sex TV, Canadian television program