And how artist/photographer Catherine Wagner refracts history

At 500 Capp Street Foundation, the former home and lifelong artwork of David Ireland, Catherine Wagner reconsiders photography not as a static medium but as a mutable field shaped by light, space, and memory. Blue Reverie, on view through January 10, 2026, marks the culmination of Wagner’s residency at 500 Capp Street, where time itself—slowed, attentive, durational—became a material.

Long drawn to the philosophical weight of the color blue, Wagner extends her inquiry here beyond the image. Photography becomes architectural and sculptural: life-sized photographs of historic light bulbs gather as luminous forms; blue-filtered windows tint the surrounding city, collapsing interior and exterior; tape-based wall drawings trace provisional maps across Ireland’s yellow walls. Light is no longer merely depicted but activated, shaping perception and redefining the house as both archive and instrument.

Wagner’s longstanding dialogue with Ireland—first initiated in 1999—re-emerges not as homage, but as conversation. Her interventions respond to his marks with restraint and lyricism, allowing meaning to accumulate quietly, alongside other works by her team. Supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Teiger Foundation, Blue Reverie positions Wagner’s analog work in a new register: immersive, spatial, and attentive to how histories linger, refracted through color, light, and lived space. 

500cappstreet.org