The most prominent subject of Stuker’s work over the past decade is mimicry, which, as Walter Benjamin asserted in his 1933 essay “The Mimetic Faculty,” is at the basis of all human learning. Today, of course, we can add that it is also at the basis of non-human learning. To evoke a paranoid scenario, this is basically how our cellphones are acceding to take our place in the world. And vice-versa, technological mimicry of human behaviors alerts us to a machinic element that was always already at work within us and perhaps accounts for the drive of the human animal to blend with its environment, to “depersonalize by assimilation to space,” as Roger Caillois described it in his 1936 text “Mimicry and Legendary Psychaesthenia.” If Stuker’s work has sought to trace this philosophical concept of mimicry, which emerges with critical force in the 1930s, it is in order to open its forms to the strange density of the synthetic nature of our era, with its preponderance of computational images.

Jeffrey Stuker (b. 1979; Fort Collins, CO) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Stuker received his MFA from Yale University, New Haven in 2005. Previous and forthcoming exhibitions include Pacific Standard Time at the Getty Museum/University of California, San Diego, CA (2024); Atavism for the Future at Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Next Year in Monte Carlo at Ben Hunter, London, UK; Solid Projections at Larder, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Objects of Desire at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2022); The International Biennial of Contemporary Photography at MOMuS, Thessaloniki Greece (2021) and Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2020). Most recently, works from Stuker’s installation at the Hammer and his solo show, Next Year in Monte Carlo at Ben Hunter were acquired by LACMA. He has written for art publications including Mousse, the White Review, Art Handler, and Effects Journal (where he also serves as a co-editor).

Exhibitions
From A Defoliated Monograph, 2024
We'll Be Your Mirror for Condo hosted by Herald St, 2024
Atavism for the Future, 2023



Installation view. From A Defoliated Monograph by Jeffrey Stuker, 2024. Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Jeffrey Stuker, Wet Season, Dry Season, 2024. 4K ProRes video, 5 minutes, looped, edition 2/3 + 2 AP. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Jeffrey Stuker, Wet Season, Dry Season, 2024. 4K ProRes video, 5 minutes, looped, edition 2/3 + 2 AP. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Installation view. From A Defoliated Monograph by Jeffrey Stuker, 2024. Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Jeffrey Stuker, From a Defoliated Monograph I, 2024. 80 Kodak Ektar transparencies, Hasselblad PCP-80 Slide Projector, dimensions variable. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Jeffrey Stuker, Kallima inachus (Dry Season), 2024. Archival pigment print, edition 1/3 + 2 AP, 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm). Photo: Evan Walsh.


Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Detail. Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Detail. Nour Mobarak & Jeffrey Stuker, Untitled, 2024. Archival pigment print, mycelium, lucite, dimensions variable. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Installation view. We’ll Be Your Mirror, 2024. Condo London hosted by Herald St, London. Photo: Andy Keate.


Installation view. We’ll Be Your Mirror, 2024. Condo London hosted by Herald St, London. Photo: Andy Keate.


Jeffrey Stuker, Kallima Inachus (Study for Recto Verso Ventral Dorsal), I, 2024. Archival pigment, edition 1/1 + 1 AP, 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm) each. Photo: Andy Keate.


Detail. Jeffrey Stuker, Feelings out of Season, (Sophocles, Fragments of Inachus): Recto, Verso, Emulsion, Base, 2023. Ilford negatives, loupe, pedestal, pedestal: 18 x 28 x 40 in. (45.7 x 71.1 x 101.6 cm); image area: 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm). Photo: Andy Keate.


Installation view. Atavism for the Future, 2023. Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Jeffrey Stuker, To the Satisfaction of the Botanist, II (Daphnis nerii caterpillar eating Vinca catharanthus leaves, Grand Sud, Madagascar, 1952), 2023. Pigment print, edition 1/2 + 2 AP, 28.5 x 24.5 in. (72.4 x 62.2 cm). Photo: Evan Walsh.


Detail. Jeffrey Stuker, To the Satisfaction of the Botanist, II (Daphnis nerii caterpillar eating Vinca catharanthus leaves, Grand Sud, Madagascar, 1952), 2023. Pigment print, edition 1/2 + 2 AP, 28.5 x 24.5 in. (72.4 x 62.2 cm). Photo: Evan Walsh.


Jeffrey Stuker, Vinca catharanthus, (L’Herbier du Muséum, Le Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris), 2023. Ilford silver gelatin negatives, loupe, pedestal, pedestal: 40.25 x 29.5 x 19.5 in. (102 x 75 x 49 cm); image area: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm) each. Photo: Evan Walsh.


Installation view. Next Year in Monte Carlo by Jeffrey Stuker, 2023. Ben Hunter, London.


Jeffrey Stuker, Papilio clytia dissimilis, 2022. Archival pigment print, 39.75 x 70.75 in. (101.24 x 180 cm).


Installation view. Throughline, 2023. Bureau, New York.


Installation view. Feelings out of Season by Jeffrey Stuker, 2023. The Fulcrum Press, Los Angeles.


Jeffrey Stuker, Mimicry and the Monte Carlo Predator, 2019. 4K video, color, sound, 10 minutes.