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Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2020 Introduction: Color mania. The material of color in photography and film. Exhibition and publication Hielscher, Eva ; Wietlisbach, Nadine Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-183184 Book Section Published Version Originally published at: Hielscher, Eva; Wietlisbach, Nadine (2020). Introduction: Color mania. The material of color in photog- raphy and film. Exhibition and publication. In: Flückiger, Barbara; Hielscher, Eva; Wietlisbach, Nadine. Color mania : the material of color in photography and film. Zürich: Lars Müller, 9-14. Color Mania: The Material of Color in Photography and Film Exhibition and Publication Eva Hielscher and Nadine Wietlisbach Since the emergence of film and photography in the nine- teenth century, the two media have both featured color—a fact that has to this day often been neglected in cultural, art historical, and sci - en tificdebates and is almost completely unknown to the general pub - lic. In the early 1840s, such photographic forms as daguerreotypes and cyanotypes already contained color elements—the former pro duced by coloring techniques, the latter by chemical reactions in the printing process. Likewise, among the earliest motion pictures pro duced in the 1890s were colorful (hand-colored, tinted, and/or toned) spectacles. But that is not all: in the course of the history of analogue photography and analogue film—both based on photoch e m i c a l l y p r o - duced individual images or series of images—several hundred color processes have been devised, long before the digital age presented the two sister media with new challenges and possibilities. Many tech- niques involved autonomous or applied colors, while others were based on additive and subtractive processes that yielded mimetic—often referred to as “natural”—colors. The respective pro cesses of photog- raphy and film were often closely interconnected. In addition to hand color ing, for example, the techniques of toning and stencil coloring be - came institutionalized in both media. Printing processes like Pinatype or Technicolor or screen processes like Autochrome or Dufaycolor were ori ginally developed for the medium of photography, before later being utilized in the 1920s in film production. On the other hand, the Gasparcolor film color process, a silver dye-bleach technique from the 1930s, was revived in the second half of the twentieth century in the field of photography as Cibachrome.1 The close association between still and moving pictures in re- lation to color is quite evident and demands closer study. Beyond the interconnections mentioned above, questions regarding content and the aesthetics of the use of color are fascinating, as is the fact that many materials that were produced using these color processes (and this is certainly true of the early techniques) remain unknown to a wider public. This has to do not only with the conservation of the materials and their colors but also with the nature of the media. Thus, while the 8 9 color layer of Autochrome glass plates, for instance, is extremely fragile ners. The digitally enlarged film strips allow for a sensual perception of and susceptible to damage from long-term exposure to light—which color in the stationary individual frames of a film, and of the colored requires special precautions to be taken to protect the items in the ex- peripheral elements in the perforation and frameline area that give hibition space—the direct presentation of film strips, individual frames, hints on the manufacturer of the film stock as well as the color process and film reels is rather unusual, as it represents an inversion of their and techniques utilized.5 The projection of and in moving images shows standard use. When screened in the cinema, these elements remained how colors appear in standard film reception, that is in motion. Both concealed from the audience’s view behind the closed doors of the forms of presentation also make reference to digitization and to issues projection booth, where they passed through the film projector. In the related to the transfer and preservation of historical images in the auditorium, they were only visible as immaterial film images projected twenty-first century. For while digital technology is increasingly dis - onto the screen.2 However, these materials contain a uniquely capti- placing the material of analogue photography and film, many works vating material aesthetic, while at the same time providing insights will no longer be accessible in the future if they are not digitized. into the diverse range of color processes. On the other hand, the historical processes also enter into di- Color Mania focuses on these material aesthetics, on the his- alogue with contemporary art. The works of Dunja Evers, Raphael Hefti, torical and technical elements of the material as well as on the inter- Barbara Kasten, and Alexandra Navratil yield a wide range of connec- connections and processes of exchange between color photography tions to the history of color photography and color film, augmenting and color film. By showing a variety of original materials and images selected facets explored in the exhibition by means of historical ma- created by means of diverse color processes, the exhibition attempts terials and providing reflections on color, techniques, materiality, image both to present an introduction to the history of color photography and production processes, photography, and film. Following an experimen- color film and to provide visitors with an aesthetic experience. In this tal and reflective approach, the historical is addressed and (re-)con- context, Color Mania features a series of objects and images that are textualized from the point of view of the present. In this way, Color usually only viewed by photo and film archivists and restorers. The pre- Mania offers an aesthetic experience that allows for different (direc - sentation of such items—among them the Autochrome photographs of tions of) readings and entry points that intersect and combine within Swiss engineer Heinrich Sallenbach, hand-colored glass slides from the exhibition space. Going beyond a purely chronological history of Norwegian polar expeditions, Technicolor color scheme samples from the development of color processes as portrayed through historical the collection of its inventor Herbert T. Kalmus, and film strips and exhibits and a systematically elaborated timeline, the contemporary frames of various color processes from the Collection Gert Koshofer3— works allow visitors to examine the subject from a current perspective— poses several challenges in terms of the conservation of the materials inviting them to re-visit historical elements in rewind (or reverse motion) and their colors. These include climatological aspects as well as the or through flashbacks. The sensory experience of viewing everything “color temperature” of the lighting, which plays a critical role in how from extremely small film strips to projections and large-scale works the colors appear. For example, a glass slide or a film strip looks com- takes visitors on a journey, providing new insights both to the general pletely different when viewed under a yellowish light than on top of a public and to professionals and specialists in the field through the light box with a color temperature similar to that of daylight.4 multitude of presentational forms. A film colors app offers another way Yet Color Mania is more than just an exhibition of items related to further explore the subject matter, as it connects to the Timeline of to historical color photography and color film. On the one hand, the Historical Film Colors.6 Color Mania has been conceived as an exhibi- analogue film documents are made to enter into a dialogue with dig- tion that com bines both art and science. itally produced and greatly enlarged photographs of historical color Several thematic focuses reappear at intervals in the exhibi- film prints and a selection of (digitized/digital) film excerpts shown tion space, embodied by different documents and objects. All of these as moving images. Both display formats offer aesthetic experiences in topics are related to the overriding theme of the materiality and aes- which the materiality of film colors is brought to bear in different man- thetic experience of color processes. Moreover, they refer to motifs or 10 11 content that frequently recur in color film and photography. Among the artistic exploration of early film colors in the works All That Slides, these themes are the connections between color, the avant-garde, and Strikes, Rises and Falls and Split/Hatch/Mutate/Double by Alexandra experimental art (see the work by Raphael Hefti and the film images Navratil and fades, among others, to the subject of color and fashion. of the directors Len Lye and Éric Duvivier); color and the theme of travel This in turn becomes the focus of the text by Olivia Kristina Stutz on ma - (see Dunja Evers’s photo series Landschaften as well as the film and terial interactions between the photography, film, and fashion indus- photo materials from the expeditions of the Norwegian polar explorer tries. Ulrich Ruedel tackles another kind of fashion in his text on tint- Roald Amundsen); color and fashion (see the textile work of Alexandra ing and toning, in which he demonstrates, among other premises, that Navratil and the film images from the MCCALL COLOUR FASHION NEWS se- these colors from silent cinema did not disappear entirely in the sound ries); and, finally, the political aspects of color, as manifested, for ex- film era or went out of fashion. And yet from a film historical point of ample, in references to various manufacturers of photographic and film view the utilization of these autonomous color processes in sound films color materials, in Amundsen’s conspicuously colored flag amid the can be attributed to a more experimental character.

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