Leland Rice
“Everything has a certain time sequence and things change appearance, just as people change appearance over a period of time…When objects get abandoned, if only for a while, they really get to be interesting because then other forces begin to take over and work on them. I’m really interested in that energy.”
— L.R.
Leland Rice: The Wall Site Series, New Mexico State University, Richard Wickerson, October, 1980
Leland Rice, Aspects of Nocturnal Passage (Berlin Wall Series), 1985-86, Cibachrome print , Edition 6/6, 40.25 x 54.75 inches
Leland Rice is an American photographer whose work centers on built environments, studio interiors, architectural fragments, and the material traces of human activity. His Wall Site works focus on spaces marked by use, abandonment, and transformation, often emphasizing walls, floors, doors, work surfaces, and objects left behind. Rather than treating these spaces as neutral documentation, Rice approaches them as sites where time, absence, and residual energy become visible. His photographs create a restrained sense of stillness, using composition, color, and surface detail to draw attention to overlooked spaces and the changing life of abandoned objects.
Rice’s work is represented in the collections of SFMOMA, the National Gallery of Art, and Princeton University Art Museum. He was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1978 exhibition Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960.