DOCSLIB.ORG

Pictorialism - a Pluralistic Environment

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Pictorialism - a Pluralistic Environment Mailing 2: Pictorialism - a pluralistic environment wilson hurst ““In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” - Alfred Stieglitz The Photographic Fix Work from the “Floating Elements” project, anti-copyright wilsonhurst © 2011 Ever since the first photographic images were fixed on a substrate, the question of legitimacy has been debated. This takes two forms. The first considers the scientific and mechanical aspects of photography and postulates these characteristics negate any claim to art. The second consideration attempts to define photographic purity and condemns any process not adhering to this strict designation. Pictorial photographers operating at the dawn of the twentieth century recognized logical problems associated with compartmentalizing “drawing with light” operations. Exactly how one worker can establish a distinction between photographic and non-photographic processes is complicated and arbitrary. The doctrine that the end justifies the means seems to be most applicable. The artist is free to define his own limits. The “Floating Element” project directly addresses reflexive questions about the nature of photography. My primary goal is to critically consider photogenic appearance, while moving my creative efforts specifically towards the disaffected dimension. Photography physically functions as an optical mediator of reality. This intermediary link has positioned the medium uniquely both culturally and historically as an unbiased purveyor of truth. Sharp detail delineation of refracted converging radiation is one defining characteristic. As a way to explore demarcation, the subject of these new images is optics itself. Here, I am literally focusing on the unfocused. Yet the surface of the floating element is sharply defined, hovering in a smooth abstract field of amorphous color, absolutely dependent on optics for its creation. Referencing optical refractive lens construction, on-axis geometry is critical. Initially, I thought that all images in the “Floating Element” series should therefore place the objective dead center. However, on further reflection, I decided to approach the work in a distinctly lyrical and poetic fashion, and allow the lens element more space to float. “Floating element lens groups move independently in relation to others providing a higher level of correction at all distances.” - Nikon What is a photograph suppose to look like anyway? The operative word here is look, which therefore posits the experience in absolute terms to a radiant energy function. This requirement defines the perimeter margin. Within any delimited arrangement, there are infinite gradations of differentiation that establish the functioning creative field. Working with reality to place inherent camera characteristics into a “pure straight image,” I exploit concepts of optical theory. Transforming the linear discourse into tangible surfaces, the floating element definition is legitimized by the presence of dust particles and other surface manifestations. A whole series of complex symbolic encodes are available. The effectiveness of any specific “Floating Element” image remains inexplicable, but with engagement experience, the variety of iterations within the field becomes increasingly clear. Settling on the Olympus 50mm f3.5 macro lens as the preferential capture optic, I am still shooting a variety of different hovering lens elements positioned within the abstract color field environment. This multi-leveled exploration of focus interrogates the essential delineation issue intrinsic to photographic expression. I believe the history of art provides ample evidence that aesthetic expression and appreciation are not explicit. Rather they depend on individual taste and preference, as governed by the general mental development of both the artist and audience, necessarily dynamic over time. No two human minds are precisely alike, and as the Pictorialist photographer, Paul L. Anderson said about his work in 1919: “This work will have a certain effect on those minds which resemble my own sufficiently to receive from external objects the same impressions that I do, or impressions similar to mine.” An important aspect of creative intent is to work beyond conventions. The ultimate goal is to create new work that does not simply rehash the past, but rather breaks new ground. It seems rather obvious this cannot be achieved without comprehensive knowledge of the archive. Of course, as the archive expands, the difficulty of operating outside its content containment boundary becomes increasingly arduous. There is no universal or standard definition of art; but narrowed down art must be measured as a synthetic abstract concept. The archive seems to indicate that since the inception of human existence, man has engaged in aesthetic concerns. Thus, this aspect of life functioning is powerful and essential, resident in the core of our spirit. Bunnell, Peter C. A Photographic Vision: Pictorial Photography, 1889- 1923. Santa Barbara: P. Smith, 1980. Print. This work is a compilation of historical essays about Pictorialism and offers a wide-ranging examination of the movement as debated during its development and reign. Initiated at the end of the nineteenth century as a conceptual approach to photography, the pictorial goal was to differentiate products derived from an optical machine as interpretive rather than mere topological records. Central to this issue are the perceived polemic relationships of science versus art and automation versus human intervention. By the beginning of the 20th century, photographers functioned in a multifaceted environment of thoughts and activities. In fact, photography is constantly evolving towards increased diversity in method and intent. Although the result is an extensive multiplicity of images and concerns, many believe that all photographs are similar and originate from analogous motivations. This view, still widespread today, is a fabrication. Another inaccuracy, perpetuated mainly by critics rather than practitioners, is the derisive analysis that the primary intent of Pictorialism was to imitate works of art in other media. A more accurate understanding places their concern with aesthetics and emotional image impact. Early practicing proponents realized that a photograph could be more than a record. “A picture functions in the realization of interpretation and reflects its creator more than its subject. A picture has meaning central to human experience.” Strategies in this effort involved subject matter selection and creative use of all available photographic manipulations. These manipulations included hand actuated tonal shifts, coating photographic sensitive emulsions on different substrates, and exploiting diverse actinic chemistries each with unique characteristics. The results moved photography away from the documentary record, which deploys still significant, but fewer manipulations. The concept of the beautiful is another important issue addressed by Pictorialism. For guidance, they turned to the archive and considered aesthetics in terms successful in other existing activities. Approached as artistic photography, Pictorialism functioned within current art styles, such as impressionism, and these styles are thus reflected in their work. To this interest the Pictorialists added the model of naturalism. Since photography responds to external energy patterns, nature became synonymous with truth. This implied a close observation of natural appearances, as interpreted by an individual exercising good taste. A new vocabulary and a rising standard of cultivation became a photographic constituent. Like all art movements that reject the past, Pictorialism opposed all preceding photography modalities. As the movement advanced, the goal was not to refine ideas or conventions presently held, but to enlighten them in ways previously unconsidered. Photographers came to believe that contemporary life could be a personal exploration. Accepting responsibility for philosophical and aesthetic intent, the Pictoralists held it possible to reshape the vision of culture. The following are critical annotations from relevant essay selections from the text, exploring “A Photographic Vision.” P. H. Emerson 1889 Science and Art The two disciplines of science and art must be understood as distinct opposites. Art appeals to emotion, eliciting an emotional response. Science appeals to intellect, adding to knowledge. Extreme detail in photography thus is scientific, nothing more than a topographical record devoid of all artistic qualities. Photographic art, on the other hand, is the selection, arrangement, and recording of certain facts with the goal of giving aesthetic pleasure. “We cannot record too many facts in Science: the fewer facts we record in Art, and yet express the subject so that it cannot be better expressed, the better.” George Davison 1891 Impressionism in Photography This age of scientific inquiry affects every branch of knowledge, including art. The impressionist painters moved in this direction by abandoning all previous artistic conventions and consulting only their impressions of natural scenes. The naturalistic school is concerned with light, color, and atmosphere in the manner seen by the eye. Photography can express our impressions of natural scenes as well as any other media. Minute definition of detail may be one distinctive quality of photography, but is not the distinctive characteristic of seeing. Alfred Stieglitz 1892 A Plea for Art Photography in
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain Is a Company Registered COVER IMAGE: in England and Wales No
    FREE GALLERY ENTRY The Royal Photographic Society 2020 EXHIBITIONS EVENTS SCREENINGS WORKSHOPS 337 Paintworks, Arnos Vale, Bristol, BS4 3AR – MARCH JANUARY Extended until 26 January FREE EXHIBITION ADMISSION Sugar Paper Theories Jack Latham Using the most controversial murder investigation in Icelandic history, Jack Latham explores the fundamental relationship between the medium of photography and truth. The Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case has become the biggest and most controversial murder investigation in Icelandic history. For the project, Sugar Paper Theories, British Photographer, Jack Latham, immersed himself in all aspects of the case, from meeting key protagonists to locating and photographing key sites of the investigation. Latham’s project brings together original photographs with a range of archival and documentary materials to explore the fundamental relationship between the medium of photography and truth. From police files to conspiracy theories, forensic science to the notion of Memory Distrust Syndrome, Sugar Paper Theories plays on issues of certainty and uncertainty, the unreliability of memory, and the power of suggestion. Jack Latham is a Bristol based photographer. He is the author of several photobooks; A Pink Flamingo (2015), Sugar Paper Theories (2016) and Parliament of Owls (2019). His work has been exhibited internationally including solo shows at Reykjavik Museum of Photography and TJ Boulting Gallery, London. Latham’s projects have received multiple awards including the Bar-Tur Photobook award (2015), Image Vevey – Heidi.News Prize (2019) and most IMAGE: recently, BJP International Photography Award (2019). © JACK LATHAM Sighting #2 Sugar Paper rps.org/SPT Theories 2015 15 February – 22 March FREE EXHIBITION ADMISSION International Photography Exhibition 162 The International Photography Exhibition (IPE) is selected from an annual international open-call to photographers and image-makers.
    [Show full text]
  • Anne Brigman Visionary in Modern Photography
    ANNE BRIGMAN VISIONARY IN MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY Photographer, poet, critic, and mountaineer, Anne Brigman (1869-1950) is best known for her figurative landscape images made in the Sierra Nevada in the early 1900s. During her lifetime, Brigman’s significance spanned both coasts of the United States. In Northern California, where she lived and worked, she was a leading Pictorialist photographer, a proponent of the Arts & Crafts movement, and a participant in the burgeoning Berkeley/Oakland Bohemian community. On the East Coast her work was promoted by Alfred Stieglitz, who elected her to the prestigious Photo-Secession and championed her as a Modern photographer. Her final years were spent in southern California, where she wrote poetry and published a book of photographs and poems, Songs of a Pagan, the year before she died. This retrospective exhibition, with loans drawn from prestigious private and public collections around the world, is the largest presentation of Brigman’s work to date. ***** The exhibition is curated by Ann M. Wolfe, Andrea and John C. Deane Family Senior Curator and Deputy Director at the Nevada Museum of Art. We thank the following individuals for their scholarly contributions and curatorial guidance: Susan Ehrens, art historian and independent curator; Alexander Nemerov, Department Chair and Carl & Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Stanford University; Kathleen Pyne, Professor Emerita of Art History at University of Notre Dame; and Heather Waldroup, Associate Director of the Honors College and Professor of Art History at Appalachian State University. ENTRANCE QUOTE Close as the indrawn and outgoing breath are these songs Woven of faraway mountains … and the planes of the sea … Gleaned from the heights and the depths that a human must know As the glories of rainbows are spun from the tears of the storm.
    [Show full text]
  • 02Nordström Final
    Alison Nordström The Pictorialist Object Lecture on November 21, 2013 on the occasion of the symposium “Inspirations – Interactions: Pictorialism Reconsidered” The context of this paper is a reconsideration of Pictorialism, a turn-of-the-last-century art movement that we historians of photography seem to reconsider on a regular basis, with each reconsideration bearing a reflection of its own times, particular interests, ideologies, and concerns. Today, our times are characterized by an enthusiasm for multiple perspectives and multiple points of view in photographic studies. Today, as was perhaps not the case at the turn of the last century, or even a generation ago, there is no singular aesthetic manifesto, not one dominant journal, no towering leader whose favoritisms and fallings out are legendary. I am just as happy to be moving forward without relying on a solitary arbiter like a Stieglitz, a Newhall, or a Szarkowski in what is today a larger, infinitely more diverse photographic community, but we must acknowledge their influences on how we were trained, and how we think about photographs, especially Pictorialist photographs. I am not an art historian; my work on Pictorialism reflects my training and interest in the discipline of cultural studies, specifically the study of material culture. I have spent my career working in museums, and my research and teaching have generally been with collections’ objects rather than with images viewed on a computer monitor, as projections on a screen, or on the printed page. It goes without saying that I think of photographs as things. I know from my own experience as a collections manager that they take up space and must be moved and handled in order to be used.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nudes of William Mortensen
    Ryerson University Digital Commons @ Ryerson Theses and dissertations 1-1-2010 The ommC and to Look: The udesN of William Mortensen Heather Pridemore Ryerson University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/dissertations Part of the Photography Commons Recommended Citation Pridemore, Heather, "The ommC and to Look: The udeN s of William Mortensen" (2010). Theses and dissertations. Paper 1578. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Ryerson. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Ryerson. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE COMMAND TO LOOK: THE NUDES OF WILLIAM MORTENSEN by Heather Pridemore, BFA, University of South Florida, May 2007 A thesis presented to Ryerson University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master’s degree in the Program of Photographic Preservation and Collections Management Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2010 © Heather Pridemore, 2010 I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis or dissertation. I authorize Ryerson University to lend this thesis or dissertation to other institutions for the purpose of scholarly research. I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this thesis or dissertation by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. ii ABSTRACT The Command to Look: The Nudes of William Mortensen considers the use of the female form by William Herbert Mortensen (American, 1897-1965), who during his life was a prominent pictorialist photographer, writer, and teacher.
    [Show full text]
  • Pictorialism in Cinema
    Pictorialism in Cinema Pictorialism in Cinema: Creating New Narrative Challenges By Jarmo Valkola Pictorialism in Cinema: Creating New Narrative Challenges By Jarmo Valkola This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Jarmo Valkola All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9762-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9762-4 CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ............................................................................................... 31 Investigations in Pictorialism: A Comparative View Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 55 Pictorial Communication: Reflections on Theoretical Perspectives Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 105 The Pictorial Image: Studies on Visuality Chapter Four ...........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Posing, Candor, and the Realisms of Photographic Portraiture, 1839-1945
    Posing, Candor, and the Realisms of Photographic Portraiture, 1839-1945 Jennifer Elizabeth Anne Rudd Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 i © 2014 Jennifer Elizabeth Anne Rudd All rights reserved ii Abstract Posing, Candor, and the Realisms of Photographic Portraiture, 1839-1945 Jennifer Elizabeth Anne Rudd This study offers a history of the concept of realism in portrait photography through the examination of a set of categories that have colored photographic practices since the origins of the medium in 1839: the posed and the candid. The first section of this study deals with the practices of posing in early photography, with chapters on the daguerreotype, the carte de visite, and the amateur snapshot photograph. Considering technological advances in conjunction with prevailing cultural mores and aesthetic practices, this section traces the changing cultural meaning of the portrait photograph, the obsolescence of the pose, and the emergence of an “unposed” aesthetic in photography. The second section of this study examines three key photographers and their strategies of photographic representation, all of which involved candid photography: it looks at Erich Salomon’s pioneering photojournalism, Humphrey Spender’s politicized sociological photography, and Walker Evans’ complex maneuvering of the documentary form. Here, the emphasis is on the ways in which the trope of the candid informed these three distinct spheres of photography in the early 20th century, and the ways in which the photographic aesthetic of candor cohered with—or contested—political and cultural developments of the interwar period in Germany, Britain, and the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • INNOVATION and EXPERIMENTATION: NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHY (The Emergence of Photographic Techniques) EARLY PHOTOGRPAHY
    INNOVATION and EXPERIMENTATION: NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHY (The Emergence of Photographic Techniques) EARLY PHOTOGRPAHY Online Links: Early Photography - Smarthistory (no video) Daguerre's Paris Boulevard - Smarthistory (No Video) Making Daguerreotypes - Video on Smarthistory The Wet Collodion Process - Video on Smarthistory Julia Margaret Cameron's Mrs. Herbert Duckworth - Smarthistory (No Video) Clementina Hawarden's Photographs – Smarthistory Timothy O'Sullivan's Ancient Ruins in the Canon de Chelle - Smarthistory (No Video) Emerson's Naturalistic Photography - Video on Smarthistory TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHY Online Links: Early Modern Photography – Smarthistory August Sander's Portraits - Smarthistory Cartier-Bresson Behind the Gare St. Lazare – Smarthistory Stieglitiz's The Steerage - Smarthistory (no video) The “first” photograph, or more specifically, the world's first permanent photograph from nature, was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827. The image depicts the view from an upstairs window at Niépce's estate, Le Gras, in the Burgundy region of France. Niépce's invention represents the origin of today's photography, film, and other media arts. Niépce developed an interest in science when he began working with his brother, Claude, on various experiments and inventions. This photograph was only discovered in 2002 and is now known to be the very first permanent photograph ever taken by Nicéphore Niépce – the father of photography. It is an image of an engraving of a man walking a horse and it was made using a technique known as heliogravure. The method involves a piece of copper covered with light sensitive bitumen. This metal plate is exposed to light and creates an image which is then transferred to paper.
    [Show full text]
  • The Big Picture Features EXHIBITION QUICK FACTS Photographic Works Recently This Exhibition Contains 99 Photographic Works by a Wide Variety of Artists
    Teacher Guide | Apr. 28 – Oct. 7, 2018 45th & Oak, Kansas City, MO nelson-atkins.org The Big Picture features EXHIBITION QUICK FACTS photographic works recently This exhibition contains 99 photographic works by a wide variety of artists. acquired by the Nelson-Atkins The works included span the years 1826 to 2016. through a $10 million gift from Most of these photographs are black-and-white; a few are in color. Many the Hall Family Foundation. of them measure at least 7 x 9 inches, making it possible for 3–4 students This transformative gift allowed to examine a single image at the same time. Some of the older works are the museum to enhance areas significantly smaller. of strength within the existing The exhibition includes a few images of nude or partially nude photography collection while human figures. expanding into new areas of interest. Photographs in The Big KEY AREAS OF THE EXHIBITION Picture present an array of time periods, styles, and subject matter The Big Picture gives special consideration to a few key areas within the in keeping with the medium’s rich museum’s photography collection: history and varied applications. Daguerreotypes – The first commercially successful form of photography. Some of the most celebrated Avant-garde photography – A stylistic movement that sought new forms photographers in history, such as of visual expression. It often emphasized energy, dramatic angles, and the Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Cindy questioning of traditional norms. Sherman, and Edward Steichen, Conceptual photography – Photography that illustrates an idea, whether are represented here. by documenting a performance art piece or communicating through visual symbols.
    [Show full text]
  • From Pictorialism to Straight Photography
    From Pictorialism to Straight photography - Photo-secession; Camera Work; 291 gallery - So focus, painterly style - labor-intensive processes: gum bichromate prinng (hand- coang arst papers with homemade emulsions) - Sacrifice detail precision for expressive effect (contrast – composion) - Symbolism (sculptor + philosopher + writer+ Edward Steichen, Rodin – The Thinker, 1902, gum bichromate print, photographer) 15 x 19 in - Composional choices + natural elements to unify pictorial whole (as opposed to labor- intensive prinng techniques) - Image metaphor for photography itself (light, shuer, print, reproDucon) - Pictorial effect Alfred Seglitz, Sun Rays, Paula, Berlin, 1889, gelan silver print, 9 x 6 in - Straight photography - Composion of abstract shapes, textures, volumes - Composion / class separaon - Polical statement? (on the subject maer but also on photography as a democrac form of art) Alfred Seglitz, The Steerage, 1907, photogravure, 335 mm / 13.19 inches x 264 mm / 10.39 inches - among the first photographic abstrac3ons to be made intenonally - Disrupon of original scale - Ambiguity of angle - does not depend upon recognizable imagery for its effect, but on the precise relaons of forms within the frame Paul,Strand, Abstracon, Twin Lakes, Conneccut, 1916, silver-planum print, 12 x 9 in. 1920s collec3ve portraiture - recovering the immediacy of experience by making the familiar seem unfamiliar (deparng from the habit of looking--and photographing-- straight ahead) - photography is mechanical and objec3ve à socially progressive - Woman-machine
    [Show full text]
  • Pictorialism As Theory
    pictorial– Ism as theory Robin Kelsey Pictorialism as Theory The contours of the category picture are neither as obvious nor as firm as they may seem. Tracking them over time betrays subtle historical shifts, oppositions, and particularities of meaning. As America passed from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, the category took on special importance for those extolling the merits of photography. For some, it rationalized shoehorning the new technology as an art along- side painting, drawing, and engraving. For others, it was a means of hailing the radically new relationship that photography had wrought between viewing and being viewed. Although boosters of both kinds often used the term picture as though it had a settled meaning, their usage was actually predicated on exploiting its plasticity. As I argue in this essay, some fruitful deformations of the term deserve more attention than they have received. Understanding these deformations requires a brief return to the long history of picture and its kindred French term tableau. At critical junctures in the history of the Western tradition, the categories of picture and tableau have allowed writers to work across artistic boundaries to imagine new aesthetic paradigms. Two cases are especially germane to the present argument. Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) entitled his prodigious 1435 commentary on the art of painting De pictura. The standard translation of the title as On Painting is eminently Robert Macpherson, Hall of the Candelabra— defensible, but the move from the Latin pictura to the English painting Vatican (detail, see fig. 1). can obscure the work that Alberti had the Latin term perform.
    [Show full text]
  • New Pictorialism: Three Visions – Three Photographers (Ali Azarmi, Danielle Rizkallah, Vivian Van Blerk) Curated by Katya Traboulsi
    New Pictorialism: Three Visions – Three Photographers (Ali Azarmi, Danielle Rizkallah, Vivian van Blerk) Curated by Katya Traboulsi 12 February–5 March 2015 Three Visions of a New Pictorialism The aim of the pictorialists, a movement that gained influence after 1885, was to obtain the recognition of photography as an artistic medium. To do this, photographers suppressed all that appeared too scientific in photography in favour of an aesthetic, plastic and subjective expression. Photography, until then seen as an expression of pure verifiable reality, was to be transformed into an art form, representing personal visions. Even if today the position of photography as an artistic medium is no longer in doubt, we are now confronted with the need to make sense of the multitude of directions and tendencies photography is taking. JAMM Art Gallery’s presentation of photographs by Ali Azarmi, Danielle Rizkallah and Vivian van Blerk, pays homage to pictorialism and to the very origins of photography where the precise objective reality promised by photography has always had to co-exist with the subjective perceptions of the human holding the camera. Neo-Pictorialism In the spirit of the new pictorialists, artist Vivian van Blerk exploits the intrinsic material qualities of photographs. To do this, he prints on sheets of glass using traditional photography chemistry such as silver emulsion, cyanotype or gum printing. His images are photomontages using images he takes himself in the streets, museums, zoos, airports... to create aesthetic compositions, which are indebted to art historical models. His collages, photo negatives and the prints themselves are often drawn on, scratched into and painted over.
    [Show full text]
  • "A New and Mysterious Art" Ancient Photographic Methods in Contemporary Art Curated by Jerry Spagnoli
    "A New and Mysterious Art" Ancient Photographic Methods in Contemporary Art Curated by Jerry Spagnoli September 15 – October 29, 2016 Takashi Arai, A Maquette for a Multiple Monument for B29:Bockscar, 2014 Daguerreotype, 73 x 220 cm New York City – An exhibition of contemporary photographs using 19th-century photographic techniques and processes – daguerreotypes, photogenic drawings, calotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, and camera obscuras – will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from September 15 – October 29, 2016. The exhibition, “A New and Mysterious Art”: Ancient Photographic Methods in Contemporary Art presents recent work by Takashi Arai, Stephen Berkman, Dan Estabrook, Adam Fuss, Luther Gerlach, Vera Lutter, Sally Mann, Matthias Olmeta, France Scully Osterman & Mark Osterman, and Craig Tuffin. Many of these works have never been exhibited before. The show is curated by photographer Jerry Spagnoli, a leader in the revitalization of the daguerreotype process. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, September 14, from 6 – 8 p.m. A related event, the annual 19th-Century Photography Conference and Show presented by the Daguerreian Society, will be held in New York from October 19—23, 2016, at the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel. More information is available at www.daguerre.org. The pre-industrial period from 1839 (when photography was invented) through the 1860s was a seminal time, when the pioneers of the medium used experimental, hand-fabricated methods to capture light. The resulting images had an immediacy and unpredictability that drew attention to the illusory nature of the nascent endeavor. The title of the exhibition at Howard Greenberg Gallery is drawn from an 1857 essay about the relationship between art and photography by Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, a British author, art critic and art historian.
    [Show full text]