Since the 1980s, American twin brothers Mike and Doug Starn have been exploring the photographic medium and testing its limits. Their conceptual works often start with a photographic image, which is then transferred to unusual materials such as glass, plastic film, tape, sheet metal or handmade paper. The motifs are sometimes designed as collages and built up in several layers, which are put together with, for example, pins. “We try to show that photography is not an image, it's a three-dimensional object,” they explained, ”It can have the same kind of growth and limitations or non-limitations as the other arts.” In a way, the innovative exploration of materials has become the hallmark of the Starn Twins, whether in sculpture, painting, video or photography. The concept of 'light', as an idea and expression, runs like a red thread through the Starn brothers' work. It can be about how moths are drawn to the lamp, how light filters through the branches of trees or about religious enlightenment.
The twins' artistic collaboration started at the age of 13, and when they were 26 they broke through at the Whitney Biennial in New York. Since then, they have been recognized for their exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the 2011 Venice Biennale, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others. Since the early 2000s, the Starn Twins have exhibited regularly at the Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm, most recently with the exhibition “Iggy and Franz” in the summer of 2019 and a group exhibition in the winter of 2023.
Today, their work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.