SANTA MONICA, CA.- Christopher Grimes Gallery presents the late Allan Sekula’s, Ship of Fools. This series was first shown at the São Paulo Biennial and represents Sekula’s last major body of work. Throughout his career he repeatedly returned to the theme of maritime space through a number of interrelated books, films and exhibitions including Fish Story, TITANIC’s wake and Lottery of the Sea. Ship of Fools examines the adaptation of a cargo vessel in 1998 to host a mobile multi-media exhibition in its hold. The exhibition, sponsored by the International Transport Workers Federation, formed part of an 18-month campaign around the world against a system of shipping under flags of convenience that shield substandard vessels and exploitative labor conditions. Sekula’s participation in various stages of the journey on the Global Mariner resulted in this series of photographs on display.

Allan Sekula (1951-2013), photographer, theorist, historian and writer lived and worked in Los Angeles. Sekula’s work was recently included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2014), and will appear this summer in SITElines, Santa Fe, NM (2014). Recent exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2013); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2011); and Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary (2011). Sekula has participated in the 29th Biennial de São Paulo (2010), documenta 11 and 12 (2002, 2007), and he was the subject of a major retrospective, Performance Under Working Conditions, for the Generali Foundation in Vienna (2003). Recent acquisitions of his work include J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Tate, London, UK; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, among others.