Exhibition: ‘Richard Misrach: After Katrina’ at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Exhibition dates: 7th August – 31st October 2010

 

Many thankx to The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005 from the exhibition 'Richard Misrach: After Katrina' at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Aug-  Oct 2010

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2399 x 1795 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005 from the exhibition 'Richard Misrach: After Katrina' at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Aug-  Oct 2010

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2400 x 1807 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005 from the exhibition 'Richard Misrach: After Katrina' at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Aug-  Oct 2010

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2400 x 1801 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

 

Just after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans in 2005, photographer Richard Misrach used a 4-megapixel pocket camera to capture messages left behind by evacuees. Some are warnings; some are cries for help or encouragement; some are tallies of loss.

Misrach composed a visual narrative that reveals the wrenching anguish of dealing with the aftermath of this horrific storm. Commemorating the hurricane’s fifth anniversary, the exhibition Richard Misrach: After Katrina presents 69 photographs that Misrach has generously given to the MFAH.

Misrach (born 1949) is best known for his Desert Cantos series, initiated in 1979 and still ongoing. Each canto within the series investigates specific aspects of the American West, from issues of water, to tourism, to the presence of the U.S. military. While developing the Cantos, Misrach has also produced series on the Golden Gate Bridge and Hawaiian beaches. The MFAH collects Misrach’s work in depth and in 1996 organised the artist’s mid-career retrospective, Crimes and Splendors: The Desert Cantos of Richard Misrach.

Text from The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2400 x 1794 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2400 x 1801 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2400 x 1807 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print, ed. #3/5
2400 x 1803 mm
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)' 2005

 

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Untitled (New Orleans and the Gulf Coast)
2005, printed 2010
Inkjet print
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the artist
© Richard Misrach

 

 

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005

Opening hours:
Wednesday 11am – 5pm
Thursday 11am – 9pm
Friday 11am – 6pm
Saturday 11am – 6pm
Sunday 12.30 – 6pm
Monday Closed
Tuesday Closed

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website

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Video: ‘Tristan’s Ascension’ and ‘Fire Woman’ by Bill Viola at St Carthages Church, Parkville

Installation dates: 8th October – 23rd October 2010

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Fire Woman' 2005 (still)

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024)
Fire Woman (still)
2005
Video/sound installation
Performer: Robin Bonaccorsi
Photos: Kira Perov
Courtesy Bill Viola Studio and Kaldor Public Art Projects

 

 

Anybody who reads this archive regularly will know my love of the work of Bill Viola. This installation of two immersive video and sound works at St. Carthage’s church in Parkville is no exception. What an experience. I came out of the church after an aural and visual bombardment and moments of reflection so excited by the visceral experience that I phoned a friend a babbled for a few minutes about the works and how I felt. They made me feel so exhilarated and alive!

After watching the videos through first time around I made the notes below the second time of viewing – a kind of mental sketch of what I seeing and feeling. Go see!

 

Stone

cold

man pure white

rumble, subterranean underwater sounds

small drops – float upwards

water flowing backwards, heavier, hovering like a sword of Damocles, heavier, heavier

Torrent, elemental, body arches, thrown around – TEMPEST! SOUND!

White light, raging waters, body levitating and ascending, Christ-like …. disappears

Water slows, stops to quietness, sound on a corrugated roof

empty stone, reflection

drips

splashes

drops of ascending water like stars twinkling in the night sky

 

……………………o

….o……………………………….o

……………………..o

…………..o………………o

….o……………………o

………..o……….o……………..0

………………………o

………..o

………………………….o

 

 

Fire         [ROAR]

dark angel, walks forward, camera changes angles

WALL of fire       ||||||||||||||||

hell, the sun, conflagration of the apocalypse

Opens arms, falls backwards into a pool of water —— CRASH – SHOCK – SOUND ASSAULTS YOU!

Disappears

 

Ripples of water/fire: camera closes in, distorting fire

Sounds becomes muffled

Yellow reflections ……………….. almost nuclear, atomic, abstract (like a wonderful Richter!)

————————–

 

gurgling sound of water, slow ripples reflecting fire and oil, fire dying out

intense blue/black, like tadpoles in a stream or the embers of darkness

Beauty

Contemplation

feeling: of life, of place in the world, of mortality … of the ineffable.

 

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Melbourne International Arts Festival for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), 2005 (excerpt)

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall)' 2005 (still)

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall)' 2005 (still)

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall)' 2005 (still)

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall)' 2005 (still)

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024)
Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall) (stills)
2005
Video/sound installation
Performer: John Hay
Photos: Kira Perov
Courtesy Bill Viola Studio and Kaldor Public Art Projects

 

 

Pioneering American artist Bill Viola has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art. For over 35 years he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces and works for television broadcast. His video installations – total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound – employ state-of-the-art technologies and are distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity. His next major commission is the creation of two permanent altar pieces for St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

For the 2010 Melbourne Festival, in partnership with Kaldor Public Art Projects, St Carthage’s Catholic Church in Parkville is turned into a video art shrine complete with the latest technology, surround sound and enveloping operatic narrative. Shown in a continuous loop, the two works, Fire Woman and Tristan’s Ascension, combine for a 20 minute visual and aural experience that extends Viola’s lifelong engagement with the human condition into ancient themes of life, love and death.

These two immersive installations are derived from Viola’s creation for Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde directed by Peter Sellars. Now separated from the opera, the stunning installations feature mythical and mystical apparitions set to their own new soundtrack, and can be experienced in all their glory in the sacred surrounds of St Carthage’s.

Bill Viola (1951-2024) is internationally recognised as one of today’s leading artists. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. For over 35 years he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast. Viola’s video installations – total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound – employ state-of-the-art technologies and are distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity. They are shown in museums and galleries worldwide and are found in many distinguished collections. His single channel videotapes have been widely broadcast and presented cinematically, while his writings have been extensively published, and translated for international readers. Viola uses video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focus on universal human experiences – birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness – and have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. Using the inner language of subjective thoughts and collective memories, his videos communicate to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience the work directly, and in their own personal way.

Text from the Melbourne International Arts Festival website

 

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) – Fire Woman (2005)

Bill Viola is without doubt the most celebrated exponent of video art. For the first time, the Grand Palais will present a wide-ranging group of his works, including moving paintings and monumental installations from 1977 to today. Focusing on both intimate and universal experiences, the artist expresses his emotional and spiritual journey through great metaphysical themes – life, death and transfiguration…

 

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) Fire Woman, 2005 Video/sound installation

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Fire Woman' 2005 (still)

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Fire Woman' 2005 (still)

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Fire Woman' 2005 (still)

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024) 'Fire Woman' 2005 (still)

 

Bill Viola (American, 1951-2024)
Fire Woman (stills)
2005
Video/sound installation
Performer: Robin Bonaccorsi
Photos: Kira Perov
Courtesy Bill Viola Studio and Kaldor Public Art Projects

 

 

St Carthages, Parkville
123 Royal Parade
Parkville 3052

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Exhibition: ‘Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970’ at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

Exhibition dates: 15th September – 23rd October 2010

 

Many thankx to Yvonne Gomez and the Bruce Silverstein Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Arthur Siegel (American, 1913-1978) 'Untitled', from the series 'In Search of Myself' 1951, printed c. 1950s from the exhibition 'Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970' at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, Sept - Oct 2010

 

Arthur Siegel (American, 1913-1978)
Untitled, from the series In Search of Myself
1951, printed c. 1950s
Dye transfer print mounted to board
Signed, initialed and dated by Adam Siegel on mount verso
6 7/8 x 10 inches
© Arthur Siegel, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Harry Callahan (1912-1999). 'New York' 1955 printed c. 1970 from the exhibition 'Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970' at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, Sept - Oct 2010

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
New York
1955 printed c. 1970s
Dye transfer print
Signed on recto
14 x 10 1/4 inches
© Harry Callahan, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Inge Morath (American, 1923-2002)
'New York City' 1958

 

Inge Morath (American, 1923-2002)
New York City
1958
Archival pigment print
© Inge Morath / Magnum Photos

 

“If I had to do color and black and white simultaneously,” Morath recalled, “I’d finish one, then do [the other], trying not to think of both at the same time; the thinking is so different!”

 

Inge Morath (American, 1923-2002)
'Hollywood, California' 1959

 

Inge Morath (American, 1923-2002)
Hollywood, California
1959
Archival pigment print
© Inge Morath / Magnum Photos

 

Inge Morath (American, 1923-2002) 'Ghost Town, Goldfield, Nevada'
1960, printed later from the exhibition 'Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970' at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, Sept - Oct 2010

 

Inge Morath (American, 1923-2002)
Ghost Town, Goldfield, Nevada
1960, printed later
Archival pigment print
Edition of 11
Estate stamp on verso
13 x 17 1/2 inches
© Inge Morath / Magnum Photos

 

Marvin Newman (American, 1927-2023) 'Coney Island I' 1953, printed 2010

 

Marvin Newman (American, 1927-2023)
Coney Island I
1953, printed 2010
Archival inkjet print
Signed and dated on verso
Edition of 10
13 x 19 inches
© Marvin Newman, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Marvin Newman (American, 1927-2023) 'Coney Island II' 1953, printed 2010

 

Marvin Newman (American, 1927-2023)
Coney Island II
1953, printed 2010
Archival inkjet print
Signed and dated on verso
Edition of 10
13 x 19 inches
© Marvin Newman, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Marvin Newman (American, 1927-2023) 'Coney Island IV' 1953, printed 2010

 

Marvin Newman (American, 1927-2023)
Coney Island IV
1953, printed 2010
Archival inkjet print
Signed and dated on verso
Edition of 10
13 x 19 inches
© Marvin Newman, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

 

Bruce Silverstein Gallery is pleased to present, Beyond COLOR: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970, a re-examination of a pivotal period in photography’s short history, when the artistic relevance of color in fine art photography had yet to be determined. The exhibition unites works for the first time by many of the “first generation” practitioners of color photography including artists Marie Cosindas, Arthur Seigel, Harry Callahan, Eliot Porter, Saul Leiter, Marvin E. Newman, Pete Turner, Ruth Orkin and Ernst Haas. Other highlights include images exhibited for the first time by Magnum’s first female member, Inge Morath, as well as a special slide projection of color images by Garry Winogrand, images that were never printed by the artist. Beyond COLOR attempts to reclaim this moment of photographic history that only today has begun to receive critical attention.

After the conclusion of World War II, innovations in technology combined with the public’s desire to “see the world as it is” resulted in an explosion in the usage of color imagery by the mass media. By 1951, commercial color television broadcasting had begun, and in 1954, half of all American films were made in color. In the early 1960’s color imagery was so prevalent that National Geographic magazine introduced a new era when it became the first major American periodical to print an all-color issue. While color photography during this period was widely embraced by mass culture – advertising and journalism – it continued to suffer from second-class status in the fine art world when compared with images in black & white. For most in the fine art establishment, black & white photography represented the medium of choice, steeped in a century-old tradition it was easily accessible and affordable to artists, and possessed known archival stability. For this reason, few artists chose to work in color and even fewer produced finished prints. Although color works had begun to selectively appear in museum exhibitions, most notably at the Museum of Modern Art, where single artist exhibitions of works by Eliot Porter (1943), Ernst Haas (1962) and Marie Cosindas (1966) were displayed, academic and institutional attention and support for this new technology was scant.

Over the past forty years, work in color created by artists during this formative period has received little attention. Most critical analysis through writings and exhibitions have focused on color work created during the 1970’s and 1980’s after the now famous Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Photographs by William Eggleston (1976), curated by John Szarkowski. This MoMA exhibition set the groundwork for defining a new purpose for color photography – one that focused more on the conceptual implications of the photograph and its creation, and away from the formalistic attributes of the image as well as the attention to color itself. The effects of Eggleston’s exhibition and Szarkowski’s essay reverberate to this day.

With a certain distance from this era when color photography was new – its place in the art world no longer a question – this exhibition offers a crucial consideration of works created during this period and encourages a new perspective on the significance of these artists’ contributions to the history of photography.

Text from the Bruce Silverstein Gallery website

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
'Providence' 1963

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Providence
1963
Dye transfer print

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1923-2017) 'Amy, Boston' 1965, printed c. 2010

 

Marie Cosindas (American, 1923-2017)
Amy, Boston
1965, printed c. 2010
Archival inkjet print
Signed, titled and dated on verso
11 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches
© Marie Consindas, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Pete Turner (American, 1934-2017)
'Cigarette Butts' 1963, printed early 1970s

 

Pete Turner (American, 1934-2017)
Cigarette Butts
1963, printed early 1970s
Unique dye transfer print
Signed, titled and dated on recto
30 x 40 inches
© Pete Turner, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Pete Turner (American, 1934-2017)
'Texascape' 1968, printed c. 1976-1980

 

Pete Turner (American, 1934-2017)
Texascape
1968, printed c. 1976-1980
Signed with artist stamp on recto
Dye transfer print
Edition of 50 (#28/50)
6 x 9 in (15.24 x 22.86cm)

 

Ruth Orkin (American, 1921-1985)
'Famous Malted Milk, NYC' c. 1950, printed 2010
Screenshot

 

Ruth Orkin (American, 1921-1985)
Famous Malted Milk, NYC
c. 1950, printed 2010
Archival inkjet print
Estate stamp on verso
Edition of 15
11 x 14 inches
ROR-00008-SP
© Ruth Orkin, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA' 1969, printed later

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
1969, printed later
Chromogenic print mounted to board
Estate stamp on verso
30 x 40 inches
EHA-00898-SP
© Ernst Haas, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY

 

 

Bruce Silverstein Gallery
529 West 20th Street
3rd Floor / Suite 3W
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212-627-3930

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday
10am – 5pm

Bruce Silverstein Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera’ at Tate Modern, London

Exhibition dates: 28th May – 3rd October 2010

 

Many thankx to Rose Dahlsen and the Tate Modern for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
 'Untitled (Atlanta)' 1984 from the exhibition 'Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera' at Tate Modern, London, May - Oct 2010 from the exhibition 'Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera' at Tate Modern, London, May - Oct 2010

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Untitled (Atlanta)
1984
Dye transfer print 
9 7/16 x 14 5/16 in. (23.97 x 36.35cm)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
© The Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Jonathan Olley. 'Golf Five Zero watchtower (known to the British Army as 'Borucki Sanger'), Crossmaglen Security Force Base, South Armagh' 1999 from the exhibition 'Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera' at Tate Modern, London, May - Oct 2010

 

Jonathan Olley (British, b. 1967)
Golf Five Zero watchtower (known to the British Army as ‘Borucki Sanger’), Crossmaglen Security Force Base, South Armagh
1999
Gelatin silver bromide print
Coutesy Diemar/Noble Photography, London
© J.Olley

 

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) 'Head #23' 2001 from the 'Head' series

 

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951)
Head #23
2001
From the Head series

 

Examining photography as an invasive act immediately confronts the complacency with which we accept these invasions, encourage them even in our curiosity, and though it falters in parts and overwhelms in others (this is a huge exhibition), EXPOSED successfully addresses a number of the social, cultural and psychologically motivating factors behind these kinds of images – why we take them and why we look at them. Critical to this engagement is the wall text at the beginning, which states that most of the hundreds of photographs on display were taken without the subject’s knowledge. It is a distinctly creepy start.

Philip-Lorcia diCorcia’s Head series perhaps best embodies this conundrum. Visually they are not terribly shocking or even necessarily interesting. Theatrical lighting catches the head of someone in a crowd and the effect is of a staged encounter. In fact, these people, denominated variously as Head #23 or Head #4, were photographed without their knowledge by a series of hidden cameras, the flash triggering as they walked by. Famously, one of diCorcia’s unwitting targets tried to take legal action against him but the landmark ruling defended the artist and his right to self-expression over any right the subject might have over their own image. It is difficult to know which is worse – to be censored or to be spied upon.

Jo Higgins. “Review: Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera, Tate Modern, London,” on the Jo Higgins website, July 5, 2010 [Online] Cited 22/03/2025

 

Benjamin Lowy (American, b. 1979) 'Iraq Perspective II' 2003-2007 from the exhibition 'Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera' at Tate Modern, London, May - Oct 2010

 

Benjamin Lowy (American, b. 1979)
Iraq Perspective II
2003-2007

 

US soldiers go on a late night raid with Iraqi Sunni Concerned citizens leading the way and identifying potential AQi targets. Due to a high level of IEDs in the area the company size raiding party walked 5 kilometres to the target in complete darkness, raided the target houses, detained questionable suspects and walked 5 kilometres back to waiting humvees.

 

Sophie Calle (French, b. 1953) 'The Hotel, Room 47' (L'Hôtel, Chambre 47) 1981

 

Sophie Calle (French, b. 1953)
The Hotel, Room 47 (L’Hôtel, Chambre 47)
1981
2 works on paper, photographs and ink
2140 x 1420 mm
Tate
Presented by the Patrons of New Art through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1999

 

 

This is a two-part framed work comprising photographs and text. In the upper part, the title Room 47 is printed below a colour photograph of elegantly carved wooden twin head-boards behind a bed covered in rich brown satin. Below it, three columns of italic text are diary entries describing findings in the hotel room between Sunday 22 February 1981 and Tuesday 24. In the lower frame a grid of nine black and white photographs show things listed in the text above. This work is part of a project titled The Hotel, which the artist has defined:

“On Monday, February 16, 1981, I was hired as a temporary chambermaid for three weeks in a Venetian hotel. I was assigned twelve bedrooms on the fourth floor. In the course of my cleaning duties, I examined the personal belongings of the hotel guests and observed through details lives which remained unknown to me. On Friday, March 6, the job came to an end.” (Quoted in Calle, pp. 140-141.)

Each of the twelve rooms gave rise to a diptych of similar structure following the occupancy of one or more guests during the period of the artist’s employment at the hotel. Some rooms feature more than once as a second set of guests occupied them, giving rise to a total of twenty-one diptychs in the series. Calle’s descriptions of the hotel rooms and their contents combine factual documentation along with her personal response to the people whose lives she glimpsed by examining their belongings. Each text begins with the chambermaid / artist’s first entry into the room and a notation of which bed or beds have been slept in, with a description of the nightwear the guests have left. A list of objects usually follows, as the artist transcribes her activities in the room. Calle is unashamedly voyeuristic, reading diaries, letters, postcards and notes written or kept by the unknown guests, rummaging in suitcases, and looking into wardrobes and drawers. She sprays herself with their perfume and cologne, makes herself up using the contents of a vanity case, eats food left behind and salvages a pair of women’s shoes left in the bin. Outside the room, she listens at doors, recording the occupants’ conversations or any other sounds she may overhear, and even peers into a room when the floor-waiter opens the door to catch a glimpse of the unknown guests.

The absent occupants described in Room 47 are a family of four – two parents and two children – as revealed by their four pairs of slippers. Calle does not go through their suitcase, commenting: ‘I am already bored’. From their passports she discovers that the parents are a married couple from Geneva and she copies out four postcards one of them has written. Words on one of these hint at problems within the family.

Calle began her artistic projects in 1979 on returning to Paris after seven years’ travel abroad. Disorientated, she felt like a stranger in her own city, not knowing how to occupy her time. She started to follow random passers-by and spend her days as they did. Eventually she picked up the camera she had been experimenting with during her time abroad and photographed the strangers, writing diaristic notes of their movements. From this she has developed a particular way of working, collecting information about people who are absent and investigating her subjects like a detective. The Hotel follows directly from a project the artist undertook the previous year entitled Suite Venetienne 1980, which evolved from a chance encounter with a man she had been following in Paris. He told her he was going to Venice, so she followed him there in disguise, documenting her observations. After a year of planning and waiting, she returned to Venice in 1981 as a chambermaid.

The Hotel diptychs were produced in an edition of four in English and four in French. Tate’s copy of Room 47 (22 February) is the first in the English edition. Another version of Room 47 exists for the period 2-6 March.

Elizabeth Manchester
June 2005

Text from the Tate website [Online] Cited 26/12/2019

 

Unknown photographer / Bain News Service, publisher. 'Mrs. Wm. Thaw, veiled, on street, White Plains, N.Y.'
1909

 

Unknown photographer
Bain News Service, publisher

Mrs. Wm. Thaw, veiled, on street, White Plains, N.Y.
1909
From a glass negative
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

 

Tom Howard (American, 1894 - 1961) '[Electrocution of Ruth Snyder, Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York]' 1928

 

Tom Howard (American, 1894-1961)
[Electrocution of Ruth Snyder, Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York]
1928
Gelatin silver print
Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase

 

In 1925, Ruth Snyder, a housewife from Queens, New York, took a lover, Judd Gray, a corsetmaker from upstate. Already married to Albert Snyder, an arts editor at MotorBoating magazine, she hid the affair for nearly three years. But on March 12, 1927, she and Gray planned a murder. After taking out a forged insurance policy, the two killed Ruth’s husband and staged a burglary scene. It didn’t take long for law enforcement to connect the dots, and a few months later, Gray and Snyder found themselves charged with first degree murder.
The court case was front page news and both Ruth and Judd found themselves constantly photographed for ever-evolving stories. Sing Sing, not one to change policy for press, reinstated that no photographers were to be present at the execution. But the public wanted to see.

The New York Daily News knew that the prison was familiar with many journalists from their staff, so they hired someone from out of town, Tom Howard, a then-unknown local photographer from the Chicago Tribune. Knowing he would never be allowed in with a camera, Howard strapped a single-use camera to his right ankle and wired a trigger release up his pant leg. Remarkably, he was allowed in. From across the room, Howard pointed his toe at the chair and took but one photo as Snyder took her last breaths.

The camera was rushed to the city and the film developed overnight. Editors and writers marveled at what was to be one of the most shocking photographs ever made: Snyder in the chair, the legs of the prison guard to the right. The image, shot on an angle, was cropped and published immediately with the headline: Dead!

The black-and-white image was shocking to the U.S. and international public alike. There sat a 32-year-old wife and mother, killed for killing. Her blurred figured seemed to evoke her struggle, as one can imagine her last, strained breaths. Never before had the press been able to attain such a startling image – one not made in a faraway war, one not taken of the aftermath of a crime scene, but one capturing the very moment between life and death here at home.

Erica Fahr Campbell. “The First Photograph of an Execution by Electric Chair,” on the TIME website, April 10,2024 [Online] Cited 24/03/2025

 

Erich Salomon (German Jewish, 1886-1944) 'Hague Conference (Second Hague Conference on Reparations, January 1930, in the early morning hours)' 1930

 

Erich Salomon (German Jewish, 1886-1944)
Hague Conference (Second Hague Conference on Reparations, January 1930, in the early morning hours)
1930
Promised gift of Paul Sack to the Sack Photographic Trust of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

 

Henri Cartier Bresson (French, 1908-2004) 'Hyeres, France' 1932

 

Henri Cartier Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Hyeres, France
1932
Gelatin silver print

 

Ben Shah (American, 1898-1969) 'Post Office, Crossville, Tennesse' 1937

 

Ben Shah (American, 1898-1969)
Post Office, Crossville, Tennesse
1937
Gelatin silver print

 

Ben Shahn visible using his right-angled lens in the window reflection

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Subway Passengers, New York' 1938

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Subway Passengers, New York
1938
Gelatin silver print

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Subway portrait' 1938-1941

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Subway Passengers, New York
1938-1941
Gelatin silver print

 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig) (American, 1899-1968) 'Their First Murder' Before 1945

 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig) (American, 1899-1968)
Their First Murder
Before 1945
Gelatin silver print

 

“Brooklyn School Children see Gambler Murdered in Street
Pupils were leaving P.S. 143, [Sixth Ave. and Roebling St.] in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, at 3:15 yesterday when Peter Mancuso, 22, described by police as a small time gambler, pulled up in a 1931 Ford at a traffic light a block from the school. Up to the car stepped a waiting gunman, who fired twice and escaped through the throng of children. Mancuso, shot through the head and heart, struggled to the board and collapsed dead on the pavement. Above are some of the spectators. The older woman is Mancuso’s aunt, who lives in the neighborhood, and the boy tugging at the hair of the girl in front of him is her son, hurrying away from her. Below is what they saw as a priest, flanked by an ambulance doctor and a detective, said the last rites of the Church over the body.”
PM Daily, October 9, 1941, Vol. II, No. 82, p. 15

Text from the International Center of Photography website

 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig) (American, 1899-1968) 'Audience in the Palace Theatre' c. 1943

 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig) (American, 1899-1968)
Audience in the Palace Theatre
c. 1943
Gelatin silver print
© Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images

 

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, born Austria, 1899-1968) '[Lovers at the Movies, Times Square]' c. 1953

 

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Austria, 1899-1968)
[Lovers at the Movies, Times Square]
c. 1953
Gelatin silver print
26.7 × 35.4cm (10 1/2 × 13 15/16 in)
© International Center of Photography

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
'New York City' 1955 From 'The Americans'

 

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
New York City
1955
From The Americans
Gelatin silver print

 

Tazio Secchiaroli (Italian, 1925-1998) 'Anita Ekberg and Husband Anthony Steel, Vecchia, Roma' 1958

 

Tazio Secchiaroli (Italian, 1925-1998)
Anita Ekberg and Husband Anthony Steel, Vecchia, Roma
1958
Gelatin silver print
SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase

 

Abraham Zapruder (American born Ukraine, 1905-1970) 'Assassination of John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963' 1963

 

Abraham Zapruder (American born Ukraine, 1905-1970)
Assassination of John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963
1963
Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase
© The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

 

United Press International. 'Suffolk, Virginia, Race Confrontation, May 6, 1964' 1964

 

United Press International
Suffolk, Virginia, Race Confrontation, May 6, 1964
1964
Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase
© United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934) 'New York City' 1966

 

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
New York City
1966
Gelatin silver print

 

Vito Acconci (Italian, 1940-2017)
'Following Piece' 1969

 

Vito Acconci (Italian, 1940-2017)
Following Piece
1969
Gelatin silver prints

 

 

Exposed offers a fascinating look at pictures made on the sly, without the explicit permission of the people depicted. With photographs from the late nineteenth century to present day, the pictures present a shocking, illuminating and witty perspective on iconic and taboo subjects.

Beginning with the idea of the ‘unseen photographer’, Exposed presents 250 works by celebrated artists and photographers including Brassaï’s erotic Secret Paris of the 1930s images; Weegee’s iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe; and Nick Ut’s reportage image of children escaping napalm attacks in the Vietnam War. Sex and celebrity is an important part of the exhibition, presenting photographs of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Paris Hilton on her way to prison and the assassination of JFK. Other renowned photographers represented in the show include Guy Bourdin, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip Lorca DiCorcia, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Lee Miller, Helmut Newton and Man Ray.

The UK is now the most surveyed country in the world. We have an obsession with voyeurism, privacy laws, freedom of media, and surveillance – images captured and relayed on camera phones, YouTube or reality TV.

Much of Exposed focuses on surveillance, including works by both amateur and press photographers, and images produced using automatic technology such as CCTV. The issues raised are particularly relevant in the current climate, with topical debates raging around the rights and desires of individuals, terrorism and the increasing availability and use of surveillance. Exposed confronts these issues and their implications head-on.

Text from the Tate Modern website [Online] Cited 21/09/2010 no longer available online

 

Kohei Yoshiyuki (Japan, b. 1946)
'Untitled' 1971 From the series 'The Park'

 

Kohei Yoshiyuki (Japan, b. 1946)
Untitled
1971
From the series The Park
Gelatin silver print

 

Kohei Yoshiyuki (Japan, b. 1946) 'Untitled' 1971 From the series 'The Park'

 

Kohei Yoshiyuki (Japan, b. 1946)
Untitled
1971
From the series The Park
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Sandra Phillips on Surveillance – Exposed at Tate Modern

SFMOMA’s Curator of Photography Sandra Phillips describes how contemporary artists like Sophie Calle and Benjamin Lowry have started to talk back to surveillance.

 

Ron Galella (American, b. 1931) 'What Makes Jackie Run? Central Park, New York City, October 4, 1971' 1971

 

Ron Galella (American, 1931-2022)
What Makes Jackie Run? Central Park, New York City, October 4, 1971
1971
Gelatin silver print
7 3/8 in x 9 7/8 in (18.73 x 25.08cm)
© Ron Galella

 

Ronald Edward Galella (January 10, 1931 – April 30, 2022) was an American photographer, known as a pioneer paparazzo. Dubbed “Paparazzo Extraordinaire” by Newsweek and “the Godfather of the U.S. paparazzi culture” by Time magazine and Vanity Fair, he is regarded by Harper’s Bazaar as “arguably the most controversial paparazzo of all time”. He photographed many celebrities out of the public eye and gained notice for his feuds with some of them, including Jacqueline Onassis and Marlon Brando. Despite the numerous controversies and claims of stalking, Galella’s work was praised and exhibited in art galleries worldwide.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984) 'Couple Kissing, Girl Staring at Camera, Tortilla Factory, New York' 1969

 

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Couple Kissing, Girl Staring at Camera, Tortilla Factory, New York
1969
Gelatin silver print
© Garry Winogrand/Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953) 'Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City' 1983

 

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City
1983
Chromogenic print
Nan Goldin and Matthew Marks Gallery, NYC

 

Denis Beaubois (Mauritian, b. 1970) 'In the event of Amnesia the city will recall…' 1996-1997 (still)

 

Denis Beaubois (Mauritian, b. 1970)
In the event of Amnesia the city will recall... (still)
1996-1997
DVD
9 mins 30 secs
Courtesy the artist

 

Denis Beaubois (Mauritian, b. 1970) 'In the event of Amnesia the city will recall…' 1996-1997 (still)

 

Denis Beaubois (Mauritian, b. 1970)
In the event of Amnesia the city will recall… (still)
1996-1997
DVD
9 mins 30 secs
Courtesy the artist

 

Alison Jackson (English, b. 1960)
'The Queen plays with her corgis' 2007

 

Alison Jackson (English, b. 1960)
The Queen plays with her corgis
2007
From the series Confidential
Chromogenic print
Courtesy the artist and Hamiltons Gallery, London
© Alison Jackson, Hamiltons Gallery, London

 

Giuseppe Primoli (Italian, 1851-1927)
'Edgar Degas emerging from a Parisian public toilet' 1889

 

Giuseppe Primoli (Italian, 1851-1927)
Edgar Degas emerging from a Parisian public toilet
1889
Gelatin silver print

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) 'Street Scene, New York' 1929

 

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Street Scene, New York
1928
Gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Georges Dudognon (French, 1922-2001) 'Greta Garbo in the Club St. Germain, Paris' c. 1950s

 

Georges Dudognon (French, 1922-2001)
Greta Garbo in the Club St. Germain, Paris
c. 1950s
Gelatin silver print
7 1/16  x 7 1/8 in. (17.94 x 18.1cm)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Members of Foto Forum, 2005.200
© Estate of Georges Dudognon

 

The face in the paparazzi image above is actually The Face: Greta Garbo. One of the most famous and admired women in the world, Garbo became a New York recluse after retiring from films at the beginning of the 1940s. Sightings of her were rare, and this 1950s image captures the conflict between a movie star’s public persona and private life. Now older and with her face obscured, Garbo is unrecognisable, but once understood to be her it becomes a contrasting reference to all those images of her as an icon of beauty and stardom.

Christian Hayes. “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera,” on The Classic Film Show website, June 15, 2010 [online] Cited 24/03/2025

 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig) (American, 1899-1968) '[Marilyn Monroe]' c. 1950s

 

Weegee (Arthur H. Fellig) (American, 1899-1968)
[Marilyn Monroe]
c. 1950s
Gelatin silver print
International Center of Photography, New York, Gift of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© Weegee / International Center of Photography / Getty Images

 

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) 'And Warhol' 1969
Screenshot

 

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
And Warhol
1969
Gelatin silver print

 

Shizuka Yokomizo (Japanese, b. 1966) 'Stranger No. 1' 1998

 

Shizuka Yokomizo (Japanese, b. 1966)
Stranger No. 1
1998
Chromogenic print
50 x 42 1/2 in. (127 x 108 cm)
© Shizuka Yokomizo

 

Shizuka Yokomizo (Japanese, b. 1966)
'Stranger No. 2' 1998

 

Shizuka Yokomizo (Japanese, b. 1966)
Stranger No. 2
1998
Chromogenic print
SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase
© Shizuka Yokomizo

 

 

Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG
020 7887 8888

Opening hours:
Daily 10.00 – 18.00

Tate Modern website

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Exhibition: ‘Timelines: Photography and Time’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 7th May – 3rd October 2010

 

Many thankx to Alison Murray and the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) 'Lacy, twelve years old and Savannah, eleven years old' 1908 from the exhibition 'Timelines: Photography and Time' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May - Oct 2010

 

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)
Lacy, twelve years old and Savannah, eleven years old
1908
Gelatin silver print
Image and sheet: 11.9 × 17.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1980

 

‘Perhaps you are weary of child labour pictures. Well, so are the rest of us, but we propose to make you and the whole country so sick and tired of the whole business that when the time for action comes, child labour pictures will be records of the past.’

Lewis Hine, 1909

 

Unknown photographer, 'No title (Ritual washing for funeral)' c. 1880 from the exhibition 'Timelines: Photography and Time' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May - Oct 2010

 

Unknown photographer
No title (Ritual washing for funeral)
c. 1880
Albumen silver photograph, colour dyes
Image and sheet: 21.2 × 26.5cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 2001

 

Felice Beato (Italian/English, 1832-1909, worked throughout Europe and Asia, 1853-1890) 'No title (Maiko)' (1866-1868, printed 1877-1985)

 

Felice Beato (Italian/English, 1832-1909, worked throughout Europe and Asia, 1853-1890)
Stillfried and Anderson and the Japan Photographic Association (studio) (Japanese, 1877-1885)
No title (Maiko)
1866-1868, printed 1877-1885
albumen silver photograph, coloured dyes
24.4 x 19.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through the NGV Foundation with the assistance of The Herald & Weekly Times Limited, Fellow, 2001

 

Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947) 'Joanie with Jade' 1973; printed 1986 from the exhibition 'Timelines: Photography and Time' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May - Oct 2010

 

Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947)
Joanie with Jade
1973; printed 1986
Gelatin silver photograph
20.3 × 30.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
© Christine Godden

 

Ruth Maddison (Australian, b. 1945) 'Molly O'Sullivan, 82' 1990

 

Ruth Maddison (Australian, b. 1945)
Molly O’Sullivan, 82
1990
From the After work series 1990
Gelatin silver photograph, oil paint, fibre-tipped pen
24.8 x 20.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the Hugh Williamson Foundation, Founder Benefactor, 1990
© Ruth Maddison

 

 

Opening 7 May, the National Gallery of Victoria will present Timelines: Photography and Time, a captivating exhibition exploring the notion of time in photographs.

Time is a slippery notion. It is everywhere and always moving but this powerful regulating force cannot be seen. It is only apparent in context: in the changing seasons, in another wrinkle on our faces, in the growth of children. Photography has a unique role to play in our sometimes poignant sense of time passing. The camera’s ability to depict ‘a moment in time’ – to stop the clock for a brief moment – gives photographs a unique capacity to direct our consideration towards the mechanics and poetics of this pervasive and mysterious cosmic force.

In this exhibition one aspect of time is considered from a photographic perspective: namely, human life. Works have been selected from the permanent collection both by International and Australian photographers that show an interest in some aspect of lifecycles. Arranged, in part, in a ‘timeline’, these works provoke our understanding of the mediums capacity to suggest the concept of time in ways that may be surprising, moving or even confronting. The exhibition also looks at how photographers have extended a sense of time and duration through images that work in series

Timelines will feature almost forty photographs from the NGV Collection by both Australian and international photographers including work by Diane Arbus, Micky Allan and Bill Brandt.

Isobel Crombie, Senior Curator of Photography, NGV said photography has a unique role to play in capturing the way that time passes.

“The camera’s ability to ‘stop the clock’ enables the medium to direct our consideration towards the mechanics and poetics of this pervasive and mysterious cosmic force.

“The instant that the photograph captures can be a potent reminder to seize the day rather than dreaming about the past or worrying about the future,” said Dr Crombie.

The exhibition also looks at how photographers have extended a sense of time and duration through images that work in series. From the 1960s onwards, photographers began experimenting with stretching time by creating a series or sequence of photographs.

This is seen in Rod McNicol’s powerful series titled A portrait revisited (1986-2006), (pictured Jack, below). Purchased by the NGV in 2009, the series features portraits of men and women; each posed directly facing the camera against a plain backdrop. There are two portraits of each subject photographed twenty years apart, inviting the viewer to compare the portraits to see how time has changed them. The sense of time passing is highlighted with the portrait of Peter, who is photographed only once. The blank image next to him is a reminder that he died before the second portrait was made.

Each phase of human existence has characteristic traits and features, and photographers have worked with these qualities in ways that evoke the passing of time and our place in this cycle. Arranged in part in a human timeline, the exhibition begins with the start of a new life as depicted in Christine Godden’s Joanie pregnant (1972) and Joanie with Jade (1973) and concludes with Kusakabe Kimbei’s Ritual washing for a funeral (c. 1880, see above – now labelled as ‘Unknown’ on the NGV website in 2019), an image of a deceased man being prepared in the traditional Japanese way for burial. This final scene captures the grief of the moment when a lifetime ends.

Frances Lindsay, Deputy Director, NGV said: “The works in the exhibition show how artists have explored the concept of time in ways that may surprise, move or even confront viewers. This exhibition provides visitors with a special opportunity to view this remarkable collection of photographs from the NGV Collection, many of which are on display for the first time.”

Timelines will include photographs by Micky Allan, Diane Arbus, Felice Beato, Bill Brandt, Brassaï, Harry Callahan, Imogen Cunningham, Walker Evans, Christine Godden, Ponch Hawkes, Petrina Hicks, Lewis Hine, Kusakabe Kimbei, Rosemary Laing, J.H. Lartigue, Ruth Maddison, Rod McNicol, David Moore, Jan Saudek, John Thompson, Roman Vishniac, and Edward Weston.

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria International website [Online] Cited 17/09/2010 no longer available online

 

Rosemary Laing (Australian, 1959-2024) 'a dozen useless actions for grieving blondes #10' 2009

 

Rosemary Laing (Australian, 1959-2024)
a dozen useless actions for grieving blondes #10
2009
Type C photograph
76.3 x 132.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2010
© Rosemary Laing and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne

 

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946) 'Jack' 2006

 

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946)
Jack
2006
From the A portrait revisited series 1986-2006
Digital type C print
48.0 x 67.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2009
© Rod McNicol

 

Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946) 'The watch that Lucy gave to Beci' (1987, printed 1989) from the exhibition 'Timelines: Photography and Time' at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May - Oct 2010

 

Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946)
The watch that Lucy gave to Beci
1987, printed 1989
Gelatin silver photograph
23.8 x 35.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Hallmark Cards Australia Pty Ltd, 1989
© Ponch Hawkes

 

David Moore (Australian, 1927-2003) 'Outback children, South Australia' 1963

 

David Moore (Australian, 1927-2003)
Outback children, South Australia
1963
Gelatin silver photograph
36.8 x 57.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through the KODAK (Australasia) Pty Ltd Fund, 1969
© David Moore Estate

 

 

NGV International
180 St Kilda Road

Opening hours
Daily 10am – 5pm

National Gallery of Victoria website

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Work in progress: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Missing in Action (red kenosis)’ 2010

September 2010

 

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Missing in Action (red kenosis)' 2010

 

 

Missing in Action (red kenosis)

A body of work is slowly taking shape. I have over 150 images at the moment (!!) and after I finish making them all the images will be culled to form the new series Missing in Action (red kenosis) (2010). Images from the new series are below. Please click on the photographs to see a larger version of the image. Enjoy!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a digital colour 16″ x 20″ costs $1000 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.

 

 

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Missing in Action (red kenosis)' 2010

 

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Missing in Action (red kenosis)' 2010

 

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Missing in Action (red kenosis)' 2010

 

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Missing in Action (red kenosis)' 2010

 

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Missing in Action (red kenosis)' 2010

 

All images from the series Missing in Action (red kenosis) 2010

 

 

Marcus Bunyan website

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Exhibition: ‘Wolfgang Tillmans’ at the Serpentine Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 26th June – 19th September, 2010

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June - Sept, 2010

 

Installation view of the exhibition Wolfgang Tillmans at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June- September, 2010
Photograph: Gautier de Blonde

 

 

“In the constellations of pictures, I try to approximate the way I see the world, not in a linear order but as a multitude of parallel experiences…  Multiple singularities, simultaneously accessible as they share the same space or room.”


Wolfgang Tillmans

 

 

Since I haven’t been to the exhibition I have tried to sequence the photographs of this wonderful artist in a small intimation of how he might have visualised them – I hope you get the idea. The installation photographs at the bottom give clues to the actual moments of what Minor White calls ‘ice/fire’ – the space between disparate images, the space that is just as important as the images themselves for the frisson that is evokes, the creation of that metaphorical leap into the void of meaning where malleable thoughts emerge; never linear, both singular and multiple at one and the same time.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Serpentine Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Anders pulling splinter from his foot' 2004 from the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June - Sept, 2010

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Anders pulling splinter from his foot
2004
C-type print
61 × 50.8cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Nanbei Hu' 2009 from the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June - Sept, 2010

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Nanbei Hu
2009
Inkjet print
207 x 138cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Roy' 2009 from the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June - Sept, 2010

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Roy
2009
C-type print
40.6 x 30.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Venus, transit' 2004

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Venus, transit
2004
C-type print
40.6 × 30.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Dan' 2008

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Dan
2008
C-type print
61 × 50.8cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Eierstapel' 2009

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Eierstapel
2009
C-type print
61 x 50.8cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Muqarnas' 2006

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Muqarnas
2006
Framed C-type print
214 × 145cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Urgency XXII' 2006

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Urgency XXII
2006
Framed C-type print
238 × 181cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Zimmerlinde (Michel)' 2006

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Zimmerlinde (Michel)
2006
Framed C-type print
211 × 145cm
Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

 

 

The Serpentine Gallery presents Wolfgang Tillmans’ first major exhibition in London since 2003. Conceived by the artist for the Serpentine Gallery, the exhibition will present both abstract and figurative work.

Over the past 20 years, Tillmans has redefined photography and the way it is shown. Known by the early 90s for the seemingly casual images of the world he inhabited, his work reassessed photographic conventions and reflected the identity politics of the time, capturing the fragility of human life and focusing on everyday objects. This early work then expanded to engage with portraiture, landscape, the still-life and, more recently, abstraction. Tillmans’ abstract work, greatly celebrated in the last decade, continues to push the boundaries and definitions of the photographic form, and will be a particular focus of this exhibition.

The wide-ranging themes in Tillmans’ photographs are combined in his reconfiguration of accumulated images, created in response to a given space. In this new exhibition, the explorations into abstraction sit alongside a new focus on the figurative – a focus that is increasingly informed by recent colour field works and experiments with process. Referring to his approach to installation making Tillmans said: “In the constellations of pictures, I try to approximate the way I see the world, not in a linear order but as a multitude of parallel experiences… Multiple singularities, simultaneously accessible as they share the same space or room.”

The Serpentine Gallery exhibition reflects the artist’s acute sensitivity to the politics of contemporary society, his ongoing fascination with colour, and his conceptual engagement with the technical processes of photography. These delicate yet challenging images capture the distinctive energetic balance between beauty and subversion that Tillmans has long embraced.

Tillmans was born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany. He studied in Great Britain at the Bournemouth & Poole College of Art & Design, graduating in 1992. In the 1990s, his work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Kunsthalle Zurich; and Portikus, Frankfurt, amongst others. In 2000 he won the Tate’s Turner Prize. A large survey exhibition in 2001-2003 toured to Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. His show called Freedom from the Known at P.S.1, New York (2006) was followed by a major tour of North American museums. In 2008, Tillmans had an extensive solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin entitled Lighter, and in 2009 was included in Making Worlds at the 53rd Venice Biennale. More than twenty monographic books on his work have been published to date and an exhibition catalogue will accompany the Serpentine Gallery exhibition.

The exhibition will run concurrently with the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010, designed by Jean Nouvel and opening on 10 July. Housed in the Pavilion will be artist Christian Boltanski’s Les Archives du Coeur installation.

Press release from the Serpentine Gallery website [Online] Cited 11/09/2010 no longer available online

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) 'Silver Installation VII' 2009 (installation view)

 

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Silver Installation VII (installation view)
2009
Unique C-type prints
Installation view
Photograph: Gautier de Blonde

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June-  September, 2010

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June-  September, 2010

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wolfgang Tillmans' at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June-  September, 2010

 

Installation views of the exhibition Wolfgang Tillmans at the Serpentine Gallery, London, June- September, 2010
Photograph: Gautier de Blonde

 

 

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA
Phone: 020 7402 6075

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm

Serpentine Gallery website

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Review: ‘How To Comfort Your Father’ by Martin Smith at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond

Exhibition dates: 24th August – 18th September 2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971) 'Enough' 2010 from the exhibition 'How To Comfort Your Father' by Martin Smith at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Aug - Sept, 2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971)
Enough
2010

 

 

Following on from last year’s exhibition My Jesus Lets Me Rub His Belly that examined issues of place and faith when the artist was growing up, Martin Smith now presents a slice of poignant son father love at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond. The combination of images and text create narratives on growing up, life, male bonding and mortality.

In Fix It Up (2010, below) the use of a circle of text on black (the circle of life) in this image paired with a dark photograph of moss covered twigs and branches is exemplary, the metaphor of the arborist chopping down a gum tree in the backyard as his father is waiting to be taken to hospital by ambulance with prostrate cancer, the last time he will be present in his house, incredibly moving. The use of blurred images, such as the central panel in the triptych Sydney (2010, below) adds emotional weight to the narratives, as though the stories told can only be fragmentary memories, as all memories are, of the events that have passed. The feeling of an excavation of the meaning of life and death is further enhanced by the incision of the letters into the photographs surface and the extrusion of the letters to form three-dimensional sculptural forms, as in the work Enough (2010, see photograph and detail below). The letters shape references the fungi on the tree behind, new life growing out of old, as though the words were being extruded out of the forest, archives of communal memory.

My favourite image in the exhibition didn’t have any words at all, not even piled as detritus at the bottom of the frame as many of Smith’s works do. It didn’t need them. The triptyph Untitled 1 (2010, below) is simple and eloquently beautiful and almost brought me to tears. When read in combination with the other works and their texts, the moss covered trees on the left become two wrinkled elbows, the image on the right the wandering mind and the image in the centre – for me, the feeling of life force as it flows in the darkness. As my yoga teacher says to me, “You must learn to navigate the dazzling darkness.”

This illumination of the mind, body, memory and spirit is what Smith’s work is all about. I adore it.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to Edwin and Sophie at Sophie Gannon Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All photographs © and courtesy of the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image as it is important to read the text with the larger horizontal works (in some you can’t read the text, it is too small – apologies).

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971) 'Regards Dad' 2010 from the exhibition 'How To Comfort Your Father' by Martin Smith at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Aug - Sept, 2010

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971)
Regards Dad
2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971) 'Enough' 2010 (detail) from the exhibition 'How To Comfort Your Father' by Martin Smith at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Aug - Sept, 2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971)
Enough (detail)
2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971) 'Fix it up' 2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971)
Fix it up
2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971) 'Sydney' 2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971)
Sydney
2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971) 'Untitled 1' 2010

 

Martin Smith (Australian, b. 1971)
Untitled 1
2010

 

 

Sophie Gannon Gallery
2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11 – 5pm

Sophie Gannon Gallery website

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Review: ‘Pat Brassington’ at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 24th August – 18th September 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'Camouflage' 2010 from the exhibition 'Pat Brassington' at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, Sun - Sept, 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Camouflage
2010

 

 

I have a critically ambivalent attitude towards the work of artist Pat Brassington. While the exhibition at Arc One Gallery in Melbourne contains some wonderful ‘images’ her work never seems to move me in an emotional sense. What it does do admirably is constantly engage me in cerebral jousting and sensory debate. Intellectually and visually I find the images stimulating, emotionally I am left a little bit cold.

Brassington’s sometimes fetishistic collage-like digital photographs occupy ambiguous spaces – fascinating ‘other’ worlds, constructed worlds that disturb and delight, drawing the viewer into subjective judgements on what, exactly, they are seeing. Brassington doesn’t need to speak about her work, much like Bill Henson never speaks about his work, because the viewer does that for her and that is the point – Brassington lets the viewer construct the story, a story that is open to multiple viewpoints and interpretations.

To see the work as just “surrealist” is to do it a disservice for it is much more than that. Of course the work uses various surrealist tropes but the power of these images is in setting up psychological encounters that are often bizarre, confronting and disturbing at a deeper level than just surface juxtapositions. These images seem to haunt you long after you have seen them. Using a limited colour palette of washed out purples, greys, yellows and pinks with a hit of red or blue where applicable (only once a green, never any solid, bright, strong colours) Brassington’s work keeps repeating objects and themes throughout the years – the dress, fish, gloves, hands, legs and the sensual mouth – to “evoke uneasy tensions between bizarre, sinister intimations of menace and weirdly beautiful, benign harmonies.” (Diane Foster).

In these new images the lascivious tongue is camouflaged, a woman marches determinedly and blindly over a hill, a child is wrapped and taped, two sateen gloves emanate and a boy breathes life into the sea (or is it the other way around, or is the boy destroying the sea through his breath?). The paradoxes are beautifully enacted and always challenging and that is the strength of the work of Brassington – offering us, the viewer, no easy way out as we stare at the red ribbons in a girl’s hair.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thank to Angela Connor and all at Arc One Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All images © and courtesy of the artist and Arc One Gallery.

 

 

Pat Brassington. 'Ocean Child' 2009 from the exhibition 'Pat Brassington' at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, Sun - Sept, 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Ocean Child
2009

 

Pat Brassington. 'Like A Bird Now' 2010 from the exhibition 'Pat Brassington' at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, Sun - Sept, 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Like A Bird Now
2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'In Lieu' 2010 from the exhibition 'Pat Brassington' at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, Sun - Sept, 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
In Lieu
2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'Sensors' 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Sensors
2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'Radar' 2009

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Radar
2009

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'Double Vision' 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Double Vision
2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'By the Way' 2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
By the Way
2010

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942) 'Stare' 2009

 

Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Stare
2009

 

 

Arc One Gallery
45 Flinders Lane
Melbourne, 3000
Phone: (03) 9650 0589

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

Arc One Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance’ at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Exhibition dates: 26th March – 6th September, 2010

 

Looks like a great exhibition – wish I was there to see it!


Many thankx to Claire Laporte and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Adam Helms (American, b. 1974) 'Untitled Portrait (Santa Fe Trail)' 2007 from the exhibition 'Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance' Guggenheim Museum, March - Sept, 2010

 

Adam Helms (American, b. 1974)
Untitled Portrait (Santa Fe Trail)
2007
Double-sided screenprint on paper vellum edition 2/2
101.3 x 65.7cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee 2007.131

 

Idris Khan (British, b. 1978) 'Homage to Bernd Becher' 2007 from the exhibition 'Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance' Guggenheim Museum, March - Sept, 2010

 

Idris Khan (British, b. 1978)
Homage to Bernd Becher
2007
Bromide print edition 1/6
49.8 x 39.7cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee

 

Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007) and Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015) 'Water Towers' 1980 from the exhibition 'Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance' Guggenheim Museum, March - Sept, 2010

 

Bernd Becher (German, 1931-2007) and Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015)
Water Towers
1980
Nine gelatin silver prints
155.6 x 125.1cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Donald Jonas

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) 'Orange Disaster #5' 1963

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Orange Disaster #5
1963
Acrylic and silkscreen enamel on canvas
269.2 x 207cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, Harry N. Abrams Family Collection 74.2118

 

Joan Jonas (American, b. 1936) 'Mirror Piece I' 1969

 

Joan Jonas (American, b. 1936)
Mirror Piece I
1969
Chromogenic print
101 x 55.6cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee

 

Zhang Huan (Chinese, b. 1965) '12 Square Meters' 1994

 

Zhang Huan (Chinese, b. 1965)
12 Square Meters
1994
Chromogenic print A.P. 3/5, edition of 15
149.9 x 99.7cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by Manuel de Santaren and Jennifer and David Stockman

 

 

Much of contemporary photography and video seems haunted by the past, by the history of art, by apparitions that are reanimated in reproductive mediums, live performance, and the virtual world. By using dated, passé, or quasi-extinct stylistic devices, subject matter, and technologies, such art embodies a longing for an otherwise unrecuperable past.

From March 26 to September 6, 2010, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance, an exhibition that documents this obsession, examining myriad ways photographic imagery is incorporated into recent practice. Drawn largely from the Guggenheim’s extensive photography and video collections, Haunted features some 100 works by nearly 60 artists, including many recent acquisitions that will be on view at the museum for the first time. The exhibition is installed throughout the rotunda and its spiralling ramps, with two additional galleries on view from June 4 to September 1, featuring works by two pairs of artists to complete Haunted’s presentation.

The works in Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance range from individual photographs and photographic series to sculptures and paintings that incorporate photographic elements; projected videos; films; performances; and site-specific installations, including a new sound work created by Susan Philips for the museum’s rotunda. While the show traces the extensive incorporation of photography into contemporary art since the 1960s, a significant part of the exhibition will be dedicated to work created since 2001 by younger artists.

Haunted is organised around a series of formal and conceptual threads that weave themselves through the artworks on view:

Appropriation and the Archive

In the early 1960s, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol began to incorporate photographic images into their paintings, establishing a new mode of visual production that relied not on the then-dominant tradition of gestural abstraction but rather on mechanical processes such as screenprinting. In so doing, they challenged the notion of art as the expression of a singular, heroic author, recasting their works as repositories for autobiographical, cultural, and historical information. This archival impulse revolutionised art production over the ensuing decades, paving the way for a conceptually driven use of photography as a means of absorbing the world at large into a new aesthetic realm. Since then, a number of artists, including Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sarah Charlesworth, Douglas Gordon, Luis Jacob, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Sara VanDerBeek, have pursued this archival impulse, amassing fragments of reality either by creating new photographs or by appropriating existing ones.

 

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
'Untitled Film Still #58' 1980

 

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Film Still #58
1980
Gelatin silver print
20.3 x 25.4cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Gift, Ginny Williams

 

“I’ve always played with make-up to transform myself, but everything, including the lighting, was self taught. I just learned things as I needed to use them. I absorbed my ideas for the women in these photos from every cultural source that I’ve ever had access to, including film, TV, advertisements, magazines, as well as any adult role models from my youth.”1

Cindy Sherman (b. 1954, Glen Ridge, N.J.) emerged onto the New York art scene in the early 1980s as part of a new generation of artists concerned with the codes of representation in a media-saturated era. Along with many artists working in the 1980s, Sherman explored photography as a way to reveal and examine the cultural constructions we designate as truth. Confronting the belief that photographs are truthful documents, Sherman’s fictional narratives suggested that photographs, like all forms of representation, are ideologically motivated. She is aware that the camera is not a neutral device but rather a tool that frames a particular viewpoint.

Sherman’s reputation was established early on with her Untitled Film Stills, a series of 69 black-and-white photographs that she began making in 1977, when she was twenty-three. In this series, the artist depicted herself dressed in the various melodramatic guises of clichéd B-movie heroines presented in 8 x 10 publicity stills from the 1950s and 1960s. In photograph after photograph, Sherman both acts in and documents her own productions. Although Sherman is both model and photographer, these images are not autobiographical. Rather, they memorialise absence and leave us searching for a narrative and clues to what may exist beyond the frame of the camera.

By the time Sherman made the Untitled Film Stills, black-and-white photography was already recognised as belonging to the past, and the styles she replicated were taken not from her own generation but from that of her mother’s. Sherman used wigs and makeup as well as vintage clothing to create a range of female characters. She sets her photos in a variety of locations, including rural landscapes, cities, and her own apartment. Although many of the pictures are taken by Sherman herself using an extended shutter release, for others she required help, sometimes enlisting friends and family. The characters she created include an ingénue finding her way in the big city, a party girl, a housewife, a woman in distress, a dancer, and an actress. In 1980 she completed the series and has said that she stopped when she ran out of clichés to depict. Unlike the media images they refer to, Sherman’s stills have a deliberate artifice that is heightened by the often-visible camera cord, slightly eccentric props, unusual camera angles, and by the fact that each image includes the artist rather than a recognisable actress or model. Sherman remains an important figure, with works in major collections around the globe, and continues to create striking, imaginative art.

Text from the Teacher’s Guide to the exhibition

1/ Cindy Sherman, quoted in Monique Beudert and Sean Rainbird, eds., Contemporary Art: The Janet Wolfson de Botton Gift, p. 99.

 

Landscape, Architecture, and the Passage of Time

Historically, one of photography’s primary functions has been to document sites where significant, often traumatic events have taken place. During the Civil War, which erupted not long after the medium was invented, a new generation of reporters sought to photograph battles, but due to the long exposure times required by early cameras, they could only capture the aftermath of the conflicts. These landscapes, strewn with the dead, now seem doubly arresting, for they capture past spaces where something has already occurred. Their state of anteriority, witnessed at such an early stage in the medium’s development, speaks to the very nature of a photograph, which possesses physical and chemical bonds to a past that disappears as soon as it is taken. As viewers, we are left with only traces from which we hope to reconstruct the absent occurrences in the fields, forests, homes, and offices depicted in the works in the exhibition. With this condition in mind, many artists, among them James Casebere, Spencer Finch, Ori Gersht, Roni Horn, Luisa Lambri, An-My Lê, Sally Mann, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, have turned to empty spaces in landscape and architecture, creating poetic reflections on time’s inexorable passing and insisting on the importance of remembrance and memorialisation.

 

Christian Boltanski (French, 1944-2021) 'Autel de Lycée Chases' 1986-1987

 

Christian Boltanski (French, 1944-2021)
Autel de Lycée Chases
1986-1987
Six photographs, six desk lamps, and twenty-two tin boxes
170.2 x 214.6 x 24.1cm
Rubell Family Collection, Miami
© 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

 

“A good work of art can never be read in one way. My work is full of contradictions. An artwork is open – it is the spectators looking at the work who make the piece, using their own background. A lamp in my work might make you think of a police interrogation, but it’s also religious, like a candle. At the same time it alludes to a precious painting, with a single light shining on it. There are many way of looking at the work. It has to be ‘unfocused’ somehow so that everyone can recognize something of their own self when viewing it.”1

The power of photography to recall the past has inspired many contemporary artists to use photographs to revisit the experience of historical events. In so doing, artists reconsider the photograph itself as an object imbued with history. They became aware that using the medium of photography would lend the elements of specificity and truth to their work.

Since the late 1960s, Christian Boltanski (b. 1944, Paris) has worked with photographs collected from ordinary and often ephemeral sources, endowing the commonplace with significance. Rather than taking original photographs to use in his installations, he often finds and rephotographs everyday documents – passport photographs, school portraits, newspaper pictures, and family albums – to memorialise everyday people. Boltanski seeks to create an art that is indistinguishable from life and has said, “The fascinating moment for me is when the spectator hasn’t registered the art connection, and the longer I can delay this association the better.”2 By appropriating mementos of other people’s lives and placing them in an art context, Boltanski explores the power of photography to transcend individual identity and to function instead as a witness to collective rituals and shared cultural memories.

In Boltanski’s 1986-1987 work Autel de Lycée Chases (which means “Altar to the Chases High School”) enlarged photographs of children are hung over a platform constructed from stacked tin biscuit boxes, which are rusted as if they have been ravaged by time. The black-and-white photographs look like artefacts from another era. An electric light illuminates each face while at the same time obscuring it. The arrangement gives no way to identify or connect the unnamed individuals.

The photos used in Autel de Lycée Chases were taken from a real-world source, the school photograph of the graduating class of 1931 from a Viennese high school for Jewish students. These students were coming of age in a world dominated by war and persecution, and it is likely that many perished over the next decade.

At once personal and universal in reference, Boltanski’s work serves as a monument to the dead, hinting at the Holocaust without naming it. Within this haunting environment, Boltanski intermingles emotion and history, sentimentality and profundity.

Text from the Teacher’s Guide to the exhibition

1/ Christian Boltanski, “Tamar Garb in conversation with Christian Boltanski,” in Christian Boltanski (London: Phaidon Press, 1997), p. 24.
2/ “Christian Boltanski: Lessons of Darkness”

 

Documentation and Reiteration

Since at least the early 1970s, photographic documentation, including film and video, has served as an important complement to the art of live performance, often setting the conditions by which performances are staged and sometimes obviating the need for a live audience altogether. Through an ironic reversal, artworks that revolved around singular moments in time have often come to rely on the permanence of images to transmit their meaning and sometimes even the very fact of their existence. For many artists, these documents take on the function of relics-objects whose meaning is deeply bound to an experience that is always already lost in the past. Works by artists such as Marina Abramović, Christian Boltanski, Sophie Calle, Tacita Dean, Joan Jonas, Christian Marclay, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ana Mendieta, and Gina Pane examine various aesthetic approaches inspired by the reiterative power of the photograph. Using photography not only to restage their own (and others’) performances but to revisit the bodily experience of past events, these artists have reconsidered the document itself as an object embedded in time, closely attending to its material specificity in their works.

 

James Casebere (American, b. 1953) 'Garage' 2003

 

James Casebere (American, b. 1953)
Garage
2003
Chromogenic print, face-mounted to acrylic
181.6 x 223.5cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Anonymous gift

 

“Black and white had more to do with memory and the past. Color was too much about the present, I associated it with color TV, which was not a part of my past. I wanted the images to be related to a sense of history, let’s say, whether personal or social. And I think black and white adds a certain level of abstraction.”1

Since the mid-1970s James Casebere (b. 1953, Lansing, Michigan) has been carefully constructing architectural models and photographing them, yielding images somewhere between realism and obvious fabrication. His photographs are stripped of color and detail to evoke a sense of emotional place rather than the physicality of a place’s forms. Casebere is interested in the memories and feelings that are brought to mind by the architectural spaces he represents. The resulting works are dramatic, surreal, and remarkably true to life, embracing qualities of photography, architecture, and sculpture.

His tabletop models imitate the appearance of architectural institutions (home, school, library, prison) or common sites (tunnel, corridor, archway), representing the structures that occupy our everyday world. These models, made from such featureless materials as Foamcore, museum board, plaster, and Styrofoam, remain empty of detail and human figures. It is only when Casebere casts light on their bland surfaces and spartan interiors that the models are transformed. By eliminating the details, and taking advantage of dramatic lighting effects and the camera’s ability to flatten space, Casebere is able to transform familiar domestic spaces to find the extraordinary in the everyday. He asks viewers to rely on their memory to fill in the gaps and to create a context in which to understand his images.

Casebere stages his photographs to construct realities inspired by contemporary American visual culture that blur the line between fiction and fact. In this way, his images suggest psychologically charged spaces and have an otherworldly quality. The notion that these may be actual places seems plausible, but the lack of human presence leads us to wonder what has happened here. The viewer may imagine a human story within the abandoned spaces. Without people or colour, the photographs are about our own associations with these spaces and what they may represent.

Text from the Teacher’s Guide to the exhibition

1/ Roberto Juarez, “James Casebere,” Bomb 77 (Fall 2001)

 

Trauma and the Uncanny

When Andy Warhol created his silkscreen paintings of Marilyn Monroe in the wake of her death, he touched on the darker side of a burgeoning media culture that, during the Vietnam War, became an integral part of everyday life. Today, with vastly expanded channels for the propagation of images, events as varied as the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the deaths of celebrities such as Princess Diana and Michael Jackson have the ability to become traumatic on a global scale. Many artists, including Adam Helms, Nate Lowman, Adam McEwen, Cady Noland, and Anri Sala, have reexamined the strategy of image appropriation Warhol pioneered, attending closely to the ways political conflict can take on global significance. At the same time, photography has altered, or as some theorists argue, completely reconfigured our sense of personal memory. From birth to death, all aspects of our lives are reconstituted as images alongside our own experience of them. This repetition, which is mirrored in the very technology of the photographic medium, effectively produces an alternate reality in representation that, especially when coping with traumatic events, can take on the force of the uncanny. Artists such as Stan Douglas, Anthony Goicolea, Sarah Anne Johnson, Jeff Wall, and Gillian Wearing exploit this effect, constructing fictional scenarios in which the pains and pleasures of personal experience return with eerie and foreboding qualities.

Press release from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum website [Online] Cited 22/08/2010 no longer available online

 

Gillian Wearing (British, b. 1963) 'Self-Portrait at Three Years Old' 2004

 

Gillian Wearing (British, b. 1963)
Self-Portrait at Three Years Old
2004
Chromogenic print
182 x 122cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Purchased with funds contributed by the International Directors Council and Executive Committee Members: Ruth Baum, Edythe Broad, Elaine Terner Cooper, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Harry David, Gail May Engelberg, Shirley Fiterman, Nicki Harris, Dakis Joannou, Rachel Lehmann, Linda Macklowe, Peter Norton, Tonino Perna, Elizabeth Richebourg Rea, Mortim

 

“I taught myself to use a camera – it’s not very difficult to use a camera, but I never bothered looking at any textbooks on how to make a picture. I had a much more casual relation to it. For me at the time it was much more about the process rather than the results.”1

Photography has not only profoundly impacted our understanding of historical events, it has also changed the way we remember our personal histories. Beginning at birth, all aspects of our lives are recorded as images alongside our own experiences of them. These parallel recording devices, the camera and personal memory, produce alternate realities that may sometimes be synchronised but at other times are askew.

Gillian Wearing (b. 1963, Birmingham, England) uses masks as a central theme in her videos and photographs. The masks, which range from literal disguises to voice dubbing, conceal the identities of her subjects and free them to reveal intimate secrets. For her 2003 series of photographs Album, Wearing used this strategy to create an autobiographical work. Donning silicon prosthetics, she carefully reconstructed old family snapshots, transforming herself into her mother, father, uncle, and brother as young adults or adolescents. In one of the works, Wearing recreated her own self-portrait as a teenager – and in fact the artist considers all the photographs in this series as self-portraits. She explains: “I was interested in the idea of being genetically connected to someone but being very different. There is something of me, literally, in all those people – we are connected, but we are each very different.”2

To make the Album series, Wearing collaborated with a talented team (some of whom have worked for Madame Tussaud’s wax works) who sculpted, cast, painted, and applied hair to create the masks, wigs, and body suits used in these photographs. The elaborate disguises the artist wears, when combined with the snapshot “realism” of the original images on which they are based, create an eerie fascination that serves to reveal aspects of her identity rather than conceal it.

Self-Portrait at Three Years Old (2004) carries this role-playing further back in time. Confronting the viewer with her adult gaze through the eyeholes of the toddler’s mask, Wearing plays on the rift between interior and exterior and raises a multitude of provocative questions about identity, memory, and the truthfulness of the photographic medium. Wearing says, “What I love about photographs is that they give you a lot and also they withhold a lot.”3

Text from the Teacher’s Guide to the exhibition

1/ “Gillian Wearing,” interview by Leo Edelstein, Journal of Contemporary Art
2/ Quoted in Jennifer Bayles, “Acquisitions: Gillian Wearing,” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (accessed January 25, 2010)
3/ Sebastian Smee, “Gillian Wearing: The art of the matter,” The Independent (London), October 18, 2003

 

Sophie Calle (French, b. 1953) 'Father Mother (The Graves, #17)' 1990

 

Sophie Calle (French, b. 1953)
Father Mother (The Graves, #17)
1990
Two gelatin silver prints in artist’s frames edition 2/2
181.0 x 111.1cm each
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Bohen Foundation

 

Ana Mendieta (Cuban American, 1948-1985) 'Untitled (Silueta Series)' 1978

 

Ana Mendieta (Cuban American, 1948-1985)
Untitled (Silueta series)
1978
Gelatin silver print
20.3 x 25.4cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee

 

Anne Collier (American, b. 1970) 'Crying' 2005

 

Anne Collier (American, b. 1970)
Crying
2005
Chromogenic print edition 1/5
99.1 x 134 x 0.6cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron M. Tighe

 

Miranda Lichtenstein (American, b. 1969) 'Floater' 2004

 

Miranda Lichtenstein (American, b. 1969)
Floater
2004
Chromogenic print edition 5/5
104.1 x 127cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Committee

 

Sarah Anne Johnson (Canadian, b. 1976) 'Morning Meeting (from Tree Planting)' 2003

 

Sarah Anne Johnson (Canadian, b. 1976)
Morning Meeting (from Tree Planting)
2003
Chromogenic print edition
73.7 x 79.7cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by Pamela and Arthur Sanders; the Harriett Ames
Charitable Trust; Henry Buhl; the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection; Ann and Mel Schaffer; Shelley Harrison; and the Photography Committee

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 'Virginia' from the 'Mother Land' series 1992

 

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Virginia from the Mother Land series
1992
Gelatin silver print
76.2 x 96.5cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Bohen Foundation

 

 

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