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Review: ‘Light Works’ at NGV International, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 23rd March – 16th September 2012

David Stephenson (Australian, b. 1955)
Star Drawing 1996/402
1996
40 x 40″
Cibachrome Print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1997
© Courtesy of the artist

This is an intimate and stimulating photographic exhibition at the NGV International featuring the work of artists Mike and Doug Starn, David Stephenson, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bill Henson, Adam Fuss, Simone Douglas, Park Hong-Chun, Eugenia Raskopoulos, Sam Shmith, Christoph Dahlhausen and Patrick Bailly-Maitre-Grand. It is fantastic to see an exhibition of solely contemporary photographs at the National Gallery of Victoria taken from their collection (with nary a vintage silver gelatin photograph in sight!), one which examines the orchestration of light from which all photography emanates – used by different photographers in the creation, and there is the key word, of their work. Collectively, the works seem to ooze a mysterious inner light, a facing towards the transcendent divine – both comforting, astonishing and terrifying in part measure.

Works included range from photograms (camera-less images), large scale installations and photographs produced using digital light-based technologies. Every one of the fifteen works on display is worthy of inclusion, worthy of study at significant length so that the viewer may obtain insight into this element and its capture (by the camera, or not) on photographic paper, orthographic film and by the retina of the eye. What afterimage does this light leave, in the mind’s eye, in our subconscious thought?

The two Bill Henson photographs are evocative of the Romantic ideals of the nineteenth century where twilight possesses a luminescence that reveals shifting forms and meaning only through contemplation. As with all Henson the “mood” of the photographs is constructed as much by the artist as the thing being photographed. It is his understanding of the reflection of light from that object and the meaning of that reflection that creates the narrative “reality,” that allows the viewer the space for contemplation. In Sam Shmith’s photograph Untitled (In spates 2) (2011, below), Shimth turns day into night, creating his own reality by digitally compositing “30-40 photographs per pictorial narrative” taken during the day and then digitally darkened to form one single photographic instance. As a spectral ‘body’ the photograph works to create a new form of hallucination, one that haunts and perturbs the mind, like a disturbing psychological thriller. The viewer is (not really) flying, (not really) floating above the clouds contemplating the narrative, creating a visual memory of things. Spectral luminescences, not-quite-right perspectives, the photograph as temporal / temporary hallucination. The image takes me to other spaces and memories, opening up new vistas in my imagination (see more of my thoughts on Shmith’s work and the digital punctum).

Beginning in 1988, Adam Fuss began to explore studies of abstracted light and colour which “involved placing the paper in a tray of water and recording the concentric circles caused by disturbing the water or dripping droplets of water into the trays. These pieces, done between 1988-1990, have an eerie, spatial quality. Infused with bright, vibrant colours and blinding white light, they resemble some hitherto unknown solar system. [Here] Fuss is concerned with the metaphorical qualities of light.

In an interview with Ross Bleckner conducted in 1992, Fuss explained the role of light in his imagery: “Light is a physical sensation. If you look at it with purely scientific eyes, its a particle that behaves like a wave or a wave that behaves like a particle. No one knows exactly what it is. It travels very fast. It has something to do with our perception of time… When one works with the idea of light, one’s working with a metaphor that’s endless and huge and unspecific. because you’re talking about something that’s almost just an idea, we can think about it but we can never grasp it. The light of the sun represents life on Earth. Light represents the fuel that is behind our existence… It’s a mystery.”1

Another beautiful photograph is Eugenia Raskopoulos’ elegiac requiem to the dis/appearance of language and the body, Diglossia #8 (2009, below). Diglossic is defined as a situation in which two languages (or two varieties of the same language) are used under different conditions within a community, often by the same speakers, with one variety of speech being more prestigious or formal and the other more suited to informal conversation or taken as a mark of lower social status or less education. As Victoria Lynn states of the series, “Each of these images carries within it a letter from the Greek alphabet. There is a word in there somewhere, but the order has been disrupted. This word, or name, has been cut, and its pieces are now before us as fragments that refuse to re-collect themselves into meaning. As such, the relationship between the letters also becomes temporal, fluid, and heterogeneous opening up the question of translation between one language to another, and one culture to another.

The images have been created using the gesture of a hand writing on a steamed up mirror. The photograph is taken very quickly, before the image, the letter and the mark of the artist disappears. We have to ask, what is disappearing here? Is it the language, the name, the aura of the photograph (in the Benjaminian sense) or indeed the body? For behind each letter we can detect a human presence – the artists’ naked body as she makes the photograph. The apparatus of photography is revealed, undressed and made naked.”2

Sol Invictus (1992, below) by the Starn Twins overwhelms in the brute force of the installation, something that cannot really be captured in the two-dimensional representation posted here (go and see the real thing!). The layering and curving of orthographic film relates to the curvature of the sun, the film held in place by screw clamps as though the artist’s were trying to contain, to fix, to regulate the radiation of the sun. Sol Invictus (here is the paradox, it means “unconquered sun” even as the Starn Twins seek to tie it down) explores the metaphorical, scientific and religious properties that gives life to this Earth. A very powerful installation that had me transfixed. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s famous series Theaters is represented in the exhibition by the work Winnetka Drive-In, Paramount (1993, below) where Sugimoto “photographs auditoriums of American movie theaters, and drive-in movies, during showings. The exposure time used for the photograph corresponds with the projection time of the film. This allows him to save the duration of the entire film in a single shot. What remains visible of the film’s time-compressed, individual images is the bright screen of the movie theater, which illuminates the architecture of the space. That its content retreats into the background makes the actual film a piece of information, manifesting itself in the (movie theater) space. As a result, instead of a content-related event, film presents itself here as the relationship between time and spatial perception.”3

If we think of the camera lens as being fully open, like an eye without blinking, for the duration of the length of the film then the shutter of the lens has to be set on “B” for Bulb which allows for long exposure times under the direct control of the photographer. “The term bulb is a reference to old-style pneumatically actuated shutters; squeezing an air bulb would open the shutter and releasing the bulb would close it… It appears that when instantaneous shutters were introduced, they included a B setting so that the familiar bulb behaviour could be duplicated with a cable release.”4 In other words light waves, reflecting from the surface of objects, are controlled by the photographer over an indefinite period (not the short “snap” of the freeze frame / the decisive moment), accumulating light from thousands of years in the past through the lens of the camera onto the focal plane, coalescing into a single image, controlled and constructed by the photographer.

My favourite works in the exhibition are David Stephenson’s two Star Drawings (1996, below) which use the same Bulb technique to capture star trails travelling across the night sky. Stephenson says that drawing the stars at night by long time exposures, “are a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence” (DS, 1998). The photographs map our position and help us understand our space in the world, that we are all made of stars, every last one of us. As far as being expressions of the sublime, these almost Abstract Expressionist, geometric light drawings are only achieved through the tilting of the camera at certain points doing the exposure and the opening and closing of the shutter, to make the intricate patterns. Man and stars combine to create a spiritual force that emanates from everything and everyone. Stephenson tilts the axis of meaning. When we look at these photographs the light that has emanated from these stars may no longer exist. It had travelled thousands of light years from the past to the present to be embedded in the film at the time of exposure and is then projected into the future so that the viewer may acknowledge it a hundred years from now.

Emanation > recognition > existence . . . . . . . . . . ∞
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . death

How Light Works

In a truly inspired piece of writing, artist and author Pablo Helguera muses on the nature of light falling on a landscape in his piece How to Understand the light on a Landscape (2005). In the text he examines qualities of light such as experiential light, home light, ghost light, the light of the deathbed (think Emmet Gowin’s photograph of Rennie Booher in her casket, “dead now and committed to mystery,” as Gowin puts it), rain light, protective light, artificial light, the light of the truly blind, the light of adolescence, sunday light, hotel light, used light, narrated light, transparent light, the light of the last day and after light.

“The conjunction of a random site, the accumulated data in the body’s memory that is linked to emotion, and the general behaviour of light form experience. Experience is triggered by light, but not exclusively by the visible light of the electromagnetic spectrum. What the human eye is incapable to perceive is absorbed by other sensory parts of the body, which contribute to the perception that light causes an effect that goes beyond the merely visual.”5

This is the crux of the “matter.” As much as photography is a dialogue between the natural and the unnatural, it is also an invocation to the gods (inside each of us and all around us). It is the breaking down of subjective and objective truths so that the myth of origin becomes fluid in this light. It is the light of creation that goes beyond the merely visual, that is an expression of an individualism that rises above the threshold of visibility – to stimulate sensory experience; to prick the imagination and memory; to make us aware and recognise the WAVELENGTH of creation. It is the LIGHT OF EXPERIENCE.

Helguera concludes, “The intersection of our body with the light and the landscape and the coded form of language that we have to construct by ourselves and explain to ourselves is our daily ordeal, and we are free to choose to ignore and live without it, because there is nothing we can do with this language other than talking to ourselves. There is no point in trying to explain it to others because it is not designed to be this way, other than remaining a remote, if equivalent, language.

Some for that reason prefer to construct empty spaces with nondescript imagery, and thus be free of the seductive and nostalgic indecipherability of the landscape and the light. Or we may choose to openly embrace the darkness of light, and thus let ourselves through the great gates of placehood, where we can finally accept the unexplainable concreteness of our moments for what they are.”6

I believe this is the role of artists, to embrace the darkness of light and the trace of experience and to show it to people that may not recognise it or have turned away from the light of experience. So many people walk through life as if in a dream, neither recognising their energy nor the good or bad that emanates from that light. As Helguera notes it causes us to create our own coded form of language to explain the LIGHT OF LIFE to ourselves. We can choose to ignore it (at out peril!) but we can also embrace light in an act of recognition, awareness, forgiveness. We can banish the empty spaces and nondescript imagery in our own lives and make connection to others so that they make gain insight into their own existence and being.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Halpert, Peter. “Adam Fuss: Light and Darkness,” in Art Press International, July/August 1993 on the Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art website. Nd. [Online] Cited 08/09/2012 No longer available online

2/ Lynn, Victoria. “Writing Towards Disappearance,” on the Eugenia Raskopoulos website. Nd. [Online] Cited 08/09/2012 No longer available online

3/ Kellein, Thomas Sugimoto, Hiroshi. Time Exposed. Thames & Hudson, First edition, 1995, p. 91, quoted in Heike Helfert. “Hiroshi Sugimoto “Theaters”,” on the the Media Art Net website Nd [Online] Cited 08/09/2012.

4/ Anon. “Bulb (photography),” on the Wikipedia website. Nd. [Online] Cited 08/09/2012

5/ Helguera, Pablo. How to Understand the Light on a Landscape (video, 15 min., 2005) is a work that simulates a scientific documentary about light to discuss the experiential aspects of light as triggered by memory. The images and text, taken from the video, are part of the book by Patt,Lise (ed.). Searching for Sebald: Photography After W.G. Sebald. Institute of Cultural Inquiry, 2007, pp. 110-119

6/ Ibid.,

Many thankx to 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.

“Light is a scientific fact, a metaphorical construct and even a spiritual force. It is considered an agent of truth, authenticity and revelation just as the absence of light signals mystery, danger and disorder. Light is also fundamental in the creation of photographs.”

Dr Isobel Crombie, Senior Curator, Photography NGV, 2012

“Light is a metaphor: where you have a dark place, and where that place becomes illuminated; where darkness becomes visible and one can see. The darkness is me, is my being. Why am I here? What am I here for? What is this experience I’m having? This is darkness. Light produces understanding.”

Adam Fuss 1990

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1948, worked in United States 1972- )
Winnetka Drive-In, Paramount
1993
Gelatin silver photograph
42.3 x 54.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by the Bowness Family Fund for Contemporary Photography, 2009
© Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy The Pace Gallery, New York

Simone Douglas (Australian)
Surrender (Collision) III (detail)
1998
Type C photograph
45.9 x 64.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
© Simone Douglas

Sam Shmith (Australian born London, b. 1980)
Untitled (In spates 2)
2011
from the In spates series 2011
Inkjet print
75.0 x 124.8cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2011
© Sam Shmith, courtesy Arc One Gallery, Melbourne

On March 23, the National Gallery of Victoria will open Light Works, a contemporary photography exhibition that explores various artists’ approaches to light – a fundamental element in the creation of photography. Drawn from the NGV’s Collection, the fifteen works on display show how photographers have exploited the creative potentials of natural and artificial light in their artworks.

Dr Isobel Crombie, Senior Curator, Photography NGV said: “Light is a scientific fact, a metaphorical construct and even a spiritual force. It is considered an agent of truth, authenticity and revelation just as the absence of light signals mystery, danger and disorder. Through a careful selection of works by international and Australian artists the emotive potential and scientific capacities of light are explored.”

Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said: “Light Works is an exhibition that has broad appeal as it will intrigue those who are artistically, spiritually, technologically or scientifically minded. The works on display demonstrate the diverse and limitless depiction of this vital element. This exhibition also provides visitors with an opportunity to see works by some of the most important contemporary global and local photography artists – a must-see exhibition for 2012.”

Works included range from photograms (camera-less images), large scale installations and photographs produced using digital light-based technologies highlighting the depth of the NGV’s remarkable photography collection. On display are works by Mike and Doug Starn, David Stephenson, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bill Henson, Adam Fuss, Simone Douglas, Park Hong-Chun, Eugenia Raskopoulos, Sam Shmith, Christoph Dahlhausen and Patrick Bailly-Maitre-Grand.

Text from the NGV website

Eugenia Raskopoulos (Australian, b. 1959)
Diglossia #8
2009
from the Diglossia series 2009
Inkjet print
139.5 x 93.3cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2009
© Eugenia Raskopoulos

This photograph shows a letter from the Greek alphabet which has been marked by hand onto a foggy mirror.

Mike Starn (American, b. 1961)
Doug Starn (American, b. 1961)
Sol Invictus
1992
Orthographic film, silicon, pipe clamps, steel and adhesive tape
175.0 x 200.0 x 35.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by the National Gallery Women’s Association, 1994
© Doug Starn, Mike Starn/ARS, New York. Licensed by VISCOPY, Sydney

Adam Fuss (English, b. 1961, worked in Australia 1962-1982, United States 1982- )
Untitled
1991
Cibachrome photograph
164.3 x 125.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the Rudy Komon Fund, Governor, 1992
© Adam Fuss. Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

NGV International
180 St Kilda Road

Opening hours:
Open daily 10am – 5pm

National Gallery of Victoria website
David Stephenson website
Hiroshi Sugimoto website
Starn Studio website
Sam Shmith website

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Exhibition: ‘Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs’ at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Exhibition dates: 7th April – 2nd September 2012

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Sand Dunes, Carson Desert, Nevada
1867
Albumen print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Of all the photographers who accompanied the Western surveys of this era, O’Sullivan remains the most admired, studied and debated. This is a result of the distinctly individual quality of his seeing – his particular union of fact and point of view; his understanding of what it meant to make a documentary photograph. O’Sullivan’s work remains inspiring and instructive: the clues it holds – to the nature of photography, 19th-century visual culture and the construction of photographic history – challenge and enlarge each new generation of viewers. ~ Press release

About the only decent sized Timothy O’Sullivan photographs online are here on Art Blart – in this posting and one I did earlier of Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Although some of the photographs from the earlier posting are reproduced again here there are also four new ones, and for that we should be thankful for there are so few quality images to look at on the web.

Following my last posting where I ruminated on the nature of photography, we note that O’Sullivan’s understanding of what it meant to make a documentary photograph was embodied in his distinctly individual way of seeing. As the above quotation observes, this was “his particular union of fact and point of view.” With this in mind, the photograph I would like you to focus on in this posting is the last one: a prescient abstract expressionist photograph almost eighty years before their advent. The fallen beams remind me of huge ice crystals in a rock cave and then you notice the pick axe at top left and leg and booted foot at right. Hang on a minute, there is another foot tucked underneath!

To have the temerity to photograph this scene in this way and this point in time in the history of photography is outstanding. Imagine being O’Sullivan coming upon this vista, framing the cave-in with beams at left and right of the image plane and detritus at the bottom. He could have left it at that, but no, he hints at the presence of a man, out of frame, doing what exactly we don’t know. It is this plaisir and jouissance that give this photograph its pleasure and pain. The knowledge that we know this scene, as the subject knows himself or herself, gives the photograph its pleasure; the fact that we don’t know what is beyond the edge of the frame, who the man is and what he is doing, fractures these structures and challenges the readers position as subject. As the viewer transgresses the act of pleasurable looking, of enjoying the formal characteristics and textures of the photograph, doubt sets in – what is the man doing, why is he there? As we transgress the pleasure principle the painful principle of what Lacan calls jouissance kicks in. The viewer suffers a crisis of doubt and, conversely, the pattern of the fallen beams of wood and the axe now create a more threatening, claustrophobic atmosphere.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Pyramid and Domes, Pyramid Lake, Nevada
1867
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99 cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96 cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13 cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Tufa formation, Anaho Island, Pyramid Lake, Nevada
1867
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Geyser Mouth in Ruby Valley, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
7 7/8 x 10 5/8 inches (20 x 26.99cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc..

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Obsidian hill, Mono Lake, California
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Mono Lake, California
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Shoshone Falls, Idaho
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy O’Sullivan (American, 1842-1882)
Cañon de Chelle, Walls of the Grand Canon about 1200 feet in height
1873
Albumen print
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Museum purchase, from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part, by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment

The photographs made by Timothy H. O’Sullivan as part of the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, or King Survey, comprise an iconic and richly varied body of work. The first of the great post-Civil War Western expeditions, the King Survey was organised under the authority of the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers. Between 1867 and 1872, Clarence King, the geologist in charge, and his party studied a vast swath of terrain, approximately 100 by 800 miles, encompassing the path of the soon-to-be-completed transcontinental railroad, from the border of California eastward to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The survey’s official photographer, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, was talented, resourceful and imaginative. In four seasons with King’s group – 1867, 1869 and 1872 – he created a diverse body of photographs: geological studies, landscapes, views of miners and mining operations, records of cities and settlements, studies of the survey itself and self-reflexive meditations on his own presence in the West.

Of all the photographers who accompanied the Western surveys of this era, O’Sullivan remains the most admired, studied and debated. This is a result of the distinctly individual quality of his seeing – his particular union of fact and point of view; his understanding of what it meant to make a documentary photograph. O’Sullivan’s work remains inspiring and instructive: the clues it holds – to the nature of photography, 19th-century visual culture and the construction of photographic history – challenge and enlarge each new generation of viewers.

The King Survey of the Great Basin, from 1867 to 1872, was the model for the other “great surveys” of the 19th-century American West. Rare and iconic works by Timothy H. O’Sullivan, the King Survey’s official photographer, will be featured in an exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from April 7 through Sept. 2. Keith F. Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall, respectively senior and assistant curators of photography at the Nelson-Atkins, organised Timothy O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs.

“There is good reason that O’Sullivan remains so influential after all these years,” said Davis. “Visually speaking, he was the world’s greatest poker player. He always kept his cards close to his vest. His images are at once boldly straightforward and deeply mysterious, a perfect combination of intuition and calculation. His genius lies, in part, in making such originality appear so effortless.”

There are 60 photographs in the exhibition. Nine were borrowed from the American Geographical Society in Milwaukee, WIS; and the remainder are from the holdings of the Nelson-Atkins. Accompanying the exhibition is a major book, co-authored by Davis and Aspinwall, with contributions by three esteemed scholars: John P. Herron, Francois Brunet, and Mark Klett.

“O’Sullivan continues to influence generations of photographers because of his purely individual melding of fact and point of view,” said Aspinwall. “He was a complicated character, a hearty adventurer, a photographic explorer and innovator, with a bit of the daredevil thrown in the mix.” The book emphasises the context of O’Sullivan’s photographs: his best known images in relation to the complete body of his survey work, the function of the photographs within the survey enterprise, and the scientific and cultural importance of the survey itself. In creating the book, Davis and Aspinwall became engaged in their own kind of “survey,” working from opposite ends of the subject back toward a common centre.

“Jane focused on the evidence of the photographs themselves, tracking down every view and putting them into chronological order,” said Davis. “I began with an overview of the history of western exploration and then attempted to describe the King Survey and O’Sullivan’s career in detail. The meeting point, the crux of the whole project, was O’Sullivan’s remarkable photographs.” Davis became fascinated with O’Sullivan’s work 40 years ago, and his respect for the richness and longevity of his work has increased over the years. “Someone once said that writing a biography usually entails a process of ‘falling out of love’ with one’s subject,” said Davis. “That’s absolutely not true in this case. This exhibition and book have resulted in a newer and deeper admiration for a truly one-of-a-kind photographic achievement. That’s O’Sullivan’s gift to us – and we want to share it. Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs gives visitors a new appreciation of the visual history of the 19th-century American West, while presenting some of the museum’s rarest treasures for public view.

Press release and text from the Nelson-Atkins website

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Long Ravine Bridge, CPRR, California
1867
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.39 × 69.85 × 4.14cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Montezuma Silver Works, Oreana, Nevada
1867
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Sioux Hot Springs, near Humboldt Salt Marsh, Nevada
1867
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99 cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96 cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13 cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Steamboat Springs, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Quartzites, Summit, East Humboldt Mountains, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Fissure, Steamboat Springs, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Image: 8 3/4 x 11 7/16 inches (22.23 x 29.05 cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96 cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13 cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Longitude Butte, Ruby Valley, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99 cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96 cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13 cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Sugar Loaf Mountain, near Virginia City, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches (19.69 x 26.99 cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96 cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13 cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Shaft of Savage Mine, Virginia City, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Cave-in, Gould & Curry Mine, Virginia City, Nevada
1868
Albumen print
Overall: 7 × 7 1/2 inches (17.78 × 19.05cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Clarence King in Uinta Mountains, Utah
1869
Albumen print
Overall: 11 1/8 × 8 1/8 inches (28.26 × 20.64cm)
Mat (exhibition): 24 × 20 inches (60.96 × 50.8cm)
Framed: 27 1/2 × 23 3/8 × 1 5/8 inches (69.85 × 59.37 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Cottonwood Lake, Wasatch Mountains, Utah
1869
Albumen print
Overall: 7 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches (19.69 x 26.67cm)
Mat (exhibition): 20 × 24 inches (50.8 × 60.96cm)
Framed: 23 3/8 × 27 1/2 × 1 5/8 inches (59.37 × 69.85 × 4.13cm)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (American born Ireland, 1840-1882)
Lake in Conejos Cañon, Colorado
1874
Albumen print
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street
Kansas City, MO 64111

Opening hours:
Thursday – Monday 10am – 5pm
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘Status – 24 Contemporary Documents’ at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 9th June – 26th August 2012

Participating artists: Lara Almarcegui, Dimitry Astakhov, Sammy Baloji, Walead Beshty, Ursula Biemann, Fernando Brito, Moyra Davey, Lukas Einsele, Cédric Eisenring / Thomas Julier, Michael Elmgreen / Ingar Dragset, Alfredo Jarr, Jérôme Leuba, Market Photo Workshop, Erica Overmeer, Trevor Paglen, Willem Popelier, Gosha Rubchinskiy, Jules Spinatsch, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Fiona Tan, Jonas Unger, Unknown Taliban, Lidwien van de Ven, wearethe99percent

Elmgreen & Dragset
Untitled (Prada Marfa)
2007
C-print
160 x 204cm
© Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset / Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Paris

The word status (noun) can mean the position of an individual in relation to another or others, especially in regard to social or professional standing. The word derives from the Latin posture, from stãre to stand. What is the standing of these photographs (as documents)? What does their posturing suggest, when the time of contemporary photographs has become but a series of disconnected presents/presence.

Mike Featherstone observes that, “Postmodern everyday culture is a culture of stylistic diversity and heterogeneity (comprising different parts or qualities), of an overload of imagery and simulations which lead to a loss of the referent or sense of reality. The subsequent fragmentation of time into a series of presents through a lack of capacity to chain signs and images into narrative sequences leads to a schizophrenic emphasis on vivid, immediate, isolated, affect-charged experiences of the presentness of the world – of intensities.“1

It is these intensities that we confront in the (Facebook) frenzy of contemporary photography. It is this schizophrenic inability to sustain a coherent identity that the photographs in this posting address. The words embedded in the media statement give ample latitude for the exploration of these immediacies: complex network, loose associations, immediate relationships, current status, apparent jumps and various themes to name but a few. But Annette Kuhn notes, “The truth / authenticity potential of photography is tied in with the idea that seeing is believing. Photography draws on an ideology of the visible as evidence. The eye of the camera is neutral, it sees the world as it is: we look at a photograph and see a slice of the world. To complete the circuit of recording, visibility and truth set up by the photograph, there has to be someone looking at it …”2 Kuhn continues, “A photograph, however much it may pretend to authenticity, must always in the final instance admit that it is not real, in the sense that what is in the picture is not here, but elsewhere.”3

The photograph evacuates its own meaning, its status as document; its posturing lies elsewhere. This very quality of absence may augment the voyeuristic pleasure of the spectator’s look.4 We return again and again to look at these fleeting, fetishistic images, to confirm their documentary status, that they do exist – to confirm our pleasure, the scopophilic desire for pleasurable looking. In the end we can ask, what do the photographs of a fake Prada shop in the desert, the perfect pink circles of identity / identical absence represent?

What are we really seeing? Do they really exist, do we really exist. Is living really believing?

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Featherstone, Mike. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage Publications, 1991, p. 124
2/ Kuhn, Annette. The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985, pp. 27-28
3/ Ibid., pp. 30-31
4/ Ibid., pp. 30-31

Many thanx to Fotomuseum Winterthur for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photograph for a larger version of the image.

Jérôme Leuba (Swiss, b. 1970)
Battlefield #60, Goldmine
2009
C-print
40 x 58cm
© Jérôme Leuba / Courtesy Blancpain Art Contemporain, Geneva

Willem Popelier (Netherlands, b. 1982)
Showroom Girls (detail)
2011
5 Inkjet prints
128 x 90.5cm each
© Willem Popelier

Photographer Willem Popelier (Eindhoven, 1982) found by accident 91 photographs and two films made by two girls on a publicly accessible computer. This was the start of a long-running project in which Popelier researched the role of photography on the internet and in social media. The result is the exhibition, Showroom Girls, an intimate portrait of one of the girls in the form of pictures and texts by her hand that Popelier found online.

Webcam

Whilst working on another project, Showroom, Popelier was looking for showroom computers which visitors use to take pictures of themselves by using the computer’s webcam. He discovered that people leave these pictures on the computer in the shop. Popelier started to collect these images. Photographs of anonymous people who portray themselves in the public domain and upon occasion rather obsessively.

On one particular computer Popelier found almost a hundred pictures made by two girls. After more research he discovered that the girls had produced around two hundred images in almost an hour. A large number of these shots were removed, but the girls had left a number on purpose. One of the girls wore a necklace stating her name. Popelier started to look for her on the internet and found both girls on various websites such as Hyves, Facebook and Twitter. Via the internet Popelier got access to the tweets of one of the girls, but also managed to find her address and even her school results. And all of this he found legally, without hacking into any secret or inaccessible data. With all the collected material he put together the exhibition Showroom Girls.

Text from the Foam website

wearethe99percent.tumblr.com 
Tumblr website, since August 2011

A few years after the digital turn the shift from analog to digital image production and archiving, Fotomuseum Winterthur explores the current state of the document and the documentary image in the exhibition Status – 24 Contemporary Documents. Whereas the term “status” used to have a thoroughly positive connotation, indicating a confident display of one’s own condition or state, today we ask about the “status” of things almost with a sense of apprehension, knowing full well that situations are often uncertain, precarious, and usually in flux. This uncertainty carries over into the field of photography. The rapid dissemination and availability of images and videos in print media, on the Internet, on social platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, or Flickr have led to new forms of communication through documentary images. Often we do not know who took the picture, nor do we know how the picture has made its way to us. How are these photographic documents to be understood? How do the schemata of seeing, understanding, deleting, and saving function in our contemporary multi-media environment?

The 24 exemplary “documents” selected for this exhibition come together in a complex network of loose associations and immediate relationships, which attempts to capture the current status of the documentary image. The apparent jumps between various themes and media formats, between official press images (Vladimir Putin fishing) and anthropological studies of the family image (the Vox Populi work by Fiona Tan) correspond to our current viewing experience as alternating between high and low, surface and depth. The conquest of unknown territory and the quiet contemplation of a personal theme form two poles of the exhibition. Whereas Trevor Paglen uses meticulous, scientific precision to offer proof of hidden US satellites operating in the night sky, Sammy Baloji, Jérôme Leuba, and Lara Almarcegui rescue removed sites or unusual biographies from oblivion. In 2009 Almarcegui was able to photograph the overgrown lots in East London that have now been built up and will be the sites of the Summer Olympics 2012.

The exhibition Status – 24 Contemporary Documents pursues the traces photography leaves behind, travelling at both analog and digital speeds. Through her video camera, Moyra Davey delves into a volume of photographs that is important to her, Portraits in Life and Death by Peter Hujar, and thereby creates a parable of decelerated reading and looking. Willem Popelier examines the shifting identities and presentations of the self through his work Showroom Girls, which offers an exemplary reflection on a younger generation’s behaviour in social networks. Conceived and realised by Jules Spinatsch, the 24-hour panorama of the trading floor of the German stock exchange in Frankfurt – a site highly familiar from media images – enables us to witness the simultaneous recording, receiving, and saving of information in the form of a 14-meter wall installation, whose individual components will come together at Fotomuseum Winterthur over the course of the opening day of the exhibition on June 8, 2012 and depict a complete calendar day.

The exhibition is organised by Thomas Seelig, curator at Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Press release from the Fotomuseum Winterthur website

Anonymous photographer
Taliban
2001
C-print
9 x 13cm
© Collection Thomas Dworzak / Courtesy Magnum Photos, Paris

Jonas Unger (German, b. 1975)
Gérard Depardieu
2010
C-print
60 x 40cm
© Jonas Unger

Trevor Paglen (American, b. 1974)
LACROSSE/ONYX II Radar Imaging Reconnaissance Satellite Passing Through Draco (USA 69)
2007
From the series: A Compendium of Secrets
C-print
152 x 122cm
© Trevor Paglen / Courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne

Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44 + 45 CH-8400
Winterthur (Zürich)

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11.00 – 18.00
Wednesday 11.00 – 20.00
Closed on Mondays

Fotomuseum Winterthur website

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Exhibition: ‘Naoya Hatakeyama: Natural Stories’ at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)

Exhibition dates: 28th July – 4th November 2012

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

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Lime Hills #12801
1986
Chromogenic print
11 13/16 in. x 14 15/16 in (30 cm x 38cm)
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photograph
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Lime Hills #22916
1988
Chromogenic print
11 13/16 in. x 14 15/16 in (30 cm x 38cm)
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Lime Hills #23514
1988
Chromogenic print
11 13/16 in. x 14 15/16 in (30 cm x 38cm)
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Lime Hills #27403
1989
Chromogenic print
11 13/16 in. x 14 15/16 in (30cm x 38cm)
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Lime Hills #29211
1990
Chromogenic print
11 13/16 in. x 14 15/16 in (30 cm x 38cm)
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Lime Hills #29214
1990
Chromogenic print
11 13/16 in. x 14 15/16 in (30cm x 38cm)
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Lime Hills (Quarry Series), 1986-1991

Each year nearly two hundred million tons of limestone – virtually the only natural resource in Japan – are cut to produce the cement necessary to build the nation’s many cities, as well as to make additives used in paper, medicine, and food products. Hatakeyama was drawn to this industrial subject from a young age; his first artistic explorations took the form of paintings of the cement factory that he passed each day as a child. For Lime Hills, his earliest photographic series, Hatakeyama returned to the area near his hometown on the northeastern coast of Japan to investigate the nearby limestone quarries and their corresponding factories. Over the next five years he broadened his scope to include mines throughout Japan, from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south. Reflecting on the physical connection between these sites and civilisation, the artist later noted: “If the concrete buildings and highways that stretch to the horizon are all made from limestone dug from the hills, and if they should all be ground to dust and this vast quantity of calcium carbonate returned to its precise points of origin, why then, with the last spoonful, the ridge lines of the hills would be restored to their original dimensions.”

These small-scale photographs offer visions of the excavated land that at first glance seem idyllic. Often shooting in the golden evening light with a large-format camera, Hatakeyama captured the sculptural contours of the processed earth, infusing it with the luminous glow seen in many Romantic landscape paintings of the nineteenth century. Yet the Romantic tradition, which highlighted the awesome terror of nature, is upended in Hatakeyama’s pictures, which instead uncover unexpected pleasures in the tamed and built environment, ultimately suggesting the artificiality of conventional notions of beauty.

Wall text from the exhibition

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Sollac Méditerranée, Fos-sur-Mer, #06709
2003
From the series Atmos
Chromogenic print
27 9/16 in. x 35 7/16 in (70 cm x 90cm)
Courtesy the artist
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Sollac Méditerranée, Fos-sur-Mer, #12209
2003
From the series Atmos
Chromogenic print
27 9/16 in. x 35 7/16 in (70 cm x 90cm)
Courtesy the artist
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Atmos, 2003

In 2003 Hatakeyama was invited to the Camargue, near Fos-sur-Mer, France, to photograph the landscape surrounding a steel factory located on the eastern edge of the Rhône delta. He worked from two perspectives, shooting on the factory grounds as well as from the surrounding landscape, much of which is conserved as a nature park. His photographs contrast the idyllic serenity of the flat plains where the Rhône river meets the Mediterranean Sea with the dramatic clouds of steam – formed when the coke used in steel making is doused in cool water – that often rise above this terrain.

Upon discovering this impressive phenomenon the artist reflected: “The etymology of ‘atmosphere’ is the ancient Greek words for vapor (atmos) and sphere (sphaira). Once I learned this, the air that filled the Camargue and the steam from the factory seemed to fuse into one before my eyes. It no longer felt strange to see signs of humanity in the sky and the land, or to sense nature in the cloud of steam from the factory. And I began to feel that it would no longer be possible to draw a clear line at the border between nature and the artificial.” Through Hatakeyama’s lens, the factory seems at once tranquil and volatile, surrounded by the golden light, billowing pastel clouds, and thick atmosphere found in many early twentieth-century paintings of industrial sites. Like the Impressionists, who embraced modern life by finding their subjects in new technologies, Hatakeyama presents new landscapes that complicate the conventional boundaries between nature and industry.”

Wall text from the exhibition

From July 28 through November 4, 2012, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present the work of one of Japan’s most important contemporary photographers in the exhibition Naoya Hatakeyama: Natural Stories. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in a U.S. museum and the first presentation of his work on the West Coast.

Organised by the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in association with SFMOMA, the exhibition gathers work spanning Naoya Hatakeyama’s entire career, including more than 100 photographs and two video installations, offering viewers new insight into the artist’s practice and place in the rich history of Japanese photography. The presentation at SFMOMA, the sole U.S. venue for this internationally traveling retrospective, is overseen by Lisa J. Sutcliffe, assistant curator of photography.

Hatakeyama is known for austere and beautiful large-scale color pictures that capture the extraordinary powers routinely deployed to shape nature to our will – and, in the case of his photographs made after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the equally powerful impact of natural forces on human activities. Whether photographing factories, quarries, mines, or tsunami-swept landscapes, Hatakeyama has developed a thorough and analytical method for observing the ways in which the human and natural worlds have both coexisted and clashed. “For the past 25 years Naoya Hatakeyama has made pictures that focus on the complicated relationship between man and nature,” says Sutcliffe. “Approaching his subjects from diverse perspectives and across time, he redefines the ways in which we visualize the natural world.”

Hatakeyama has long been interested in the relationship between human industry and the natural environment. His early series of photographs of limestone quarries, Lime Hills (1986-91), references the Romantic painterly tradition of the sublime, but links it to the relentless pursuit of raw materials for modern development. After observing that “the quarries and the cities are like negative and positive images of a single photograph,” Hatakeyama began to investigate urban centers built from limestone and concrete. In Underground (1999), he explores the pitch-black depths of Tokyo’s underbelly from the tunnels of the Shibuya River, revealing the ecosystems of the city’s sewer network that often go unseen. Nearly a decade later he returned to the subject, photographing the remnants of decaying limestone quarries underneath Paris in Ciel Tombé (2007).

Several of Hatakeyama’s photographic series capture scenes of destruction with calm precision. Contemplating the abandoned structures surrounding a disused coal mine, Zeche Westfalen I/II Ahlen (2003/2004) includes images of a German factory hall seemingly suspended in midair at the moment of its demolition. For the Blast series (2005), the photographer used a high-speed motor-driven camera to document explosions in an open-cast limestone mine, framing the instant of impact in a series of still photographs. The exhibition will present the U.S. debut of Twenty-Four Blasts (2011), a video installation of his still photographs from Blast that transforms these explosions into a found sculptural event.

Hatakeyama has applied his measured and unsentimental method of observation to landscapes in transition around the world. In the series Atmos (2003), his representations of tranquil French landscapes include steam clouds generated by steelworks. Also made in France, the series Terrils (2009-10) pictures the massive conical hills created by coal mining, documenting landscapes transformed by the human exploitation of natural resources. Considering a different type of human impact on the natural world, Hatakeyama observes the conquest of the Swiss Alps by tourism in Another Mountain (2005), invoking the sublime both through choice of subject matter and through the contrast in scale between man and nature.

The most recent series in the exhibition, Rikuzentakata (2011), records the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan. For Hatakeyama, the disaster struck very close to home: his hometown of Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture was left in ruins, his mother was killed, and the house he grew up in was destroyed. Although these are some of the most personal photographs the artist has ever exhibited, they are remarkably unsentimental, displaying the same clarity and refinement that mark the rest of his work. The video installation Kesengawa (2002-10), named after the river that flows through Rikuzentakata, presents his personal photographs of the area made before the tsunami, creating a poignant dialogue with the 2011 series.

Press release from the SFMOMA website

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
A BIRD/Blast #130
2006
Chromogenic print
8 in. x 10 in (20.32cm x 25.4cm)
Courtesy of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Taka Ishii Gallery
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
A BIRD/Blast #130
2006
#7 from a series of 17 chromogenic prints
8 in. x 10 in (20.32cm x 25.4cm)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, promised gift of Kurenboh
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
A BIRD/Blast #130
2006
#15 from a series of 17 chromogenic prints
8 in. x 10 in (20.32cm x 25.4cm)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, promised gift of Kurenboh
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Still from Twenty-Four Blasts
2011
HD video installation from a sequence of 35 mm film
Courtesy the artist
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Still from Twenty-Four Blasts
2011
HD video installation from a sequence of 35 mm film
Courtesy of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Taka Ishii Gallery
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Blast, 1995
Zeche Westfalen I/II, Ahlen, 2003-2004

While photographing Japanese quarries and factories for Lime Hills, Hatakeyama became intrigued by the regular explosions designed to free limestone from the cliffs. He was interested in the violence and force of the blasts as well as in the engineers’ deep understanding of the “nature” of the rock. Working with these experts, he was able to calculate exactly how close he could place his remote controlled, motorised camera to the blast to capture the explosion in still frames. The striking large-scale photographs this method produced dramatise the tension between the slow geologic formation of the rocks and the split-second detonation that destroys them. Distilling his study to a series of frozen moments of intense scrutiny, Hatakeyama emphasises the volatile character of the blast, offering a perspective that cannot be seen by the naked eye. In the video projection Twenty-Four Blasts, presented in the next room, these explosions are set to motion, serving as documentation of the mining process while also reflecting an understanding of the blast as a sculptural event.

In Zeche Westfalen I/II, Ahlen, a series taken in Germany, Hatakeyama used a remote-controlled camera shutter to photograph the destruction of the Zeche Westfalen coal plant at the time of detonation. An industrial centre since the mid-nineteenth century, the area is experiencing new development as mines are destroyed to make way for commercial and residential growth. These pictures serve as a record of one such transition, trapping the building as it hovers in midair in the moments just before its destruction. Although photography is often used to capture an image of something before it is gone, these pictures reveal Hatakeyama’s interest in documenting destruction analytically and in real time, as a celebration of the future rather than an elegy to the past.

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Ciel Tombé #219
1991, printed 2011
chromogenic print
7 7/8 × 3 7/8 in. (20 × 10cm)
Collection SFMOMA
Gift of the Kurenboh Collection
© Naoya Hatakeyama

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Underground #7109
1999
Chromogenic print
19 5/16 in. x 19 5/16 in (49 cm x 49cm)
Collection of Michael and Jeanne Klein
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Underground #6302
1999
Chromogenic print
19 5/16 in. x 19 5/16 in (49 cm x 49cm)
Collection of Michael and Jeanne Klein
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Underground #7001
1999
Chromogenic print
19 5/16 in. x 19 5/16 in (49 cm x 49cm)
Collection of Michael and Jeanne Klein
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Underground, 1999 / Ciel Tombé, 2007

After photographing the limestone quarries around Japan, Hatakeyama realised that the urban fabric of Tokyo resembles a mirror image of the excavated earth when viewed from above. As he later wrote, “the quarries and the cities are like negative and positive images of a single photograph.” This revelation led him to photograph the city from great heights and, later, to document the tunnels snaking beneath it. The Shibuya River, diverted beneath Tokyo like a sewer, echoes the chambers Hatakeyama observed within the quarries, yet it is shrouded in darkness and mystery. His abstract and often theatrically lit pictures of the underground river, illuminated by a strobe at the centre of each composition, investigate the process of photographing complete darkness.

Long interested in exploring the subterranean landscapes of France, where limestone was quarried in the carrières below Paris beginning in the thirteenth century, Hatakeyama followed his Tokyo pictures with a Parisian series. For Ciel Tombé he photographed the tunnels beneath the Bois de Vincennes, a wooded park to the east of the city. The series title, which translates literally as “fallen sky,” is a term often used to describe the collapsed ceilings in Parisian underground tunnels. The resulting pictures, which share the dramatic lighting of his Shibuya River series, emphasise the fragility of a built environment exposed to the ravages of time. Hatakeyama has remarked that in these tunnels, “the sky has now become an ancient layer of earth permeating below the city [in which] we live.”

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Noyelles-sous-Lens, #07729
2009
From the series Terrils
Chromogenic print
23 5/8 in. x 29 1/2 in (60 cm x 75cm)
Courtesy the artist
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Loos-en-Gohelle, #02607
2009
From the series Terrils
Chromogenic print
23 5/8 in. x 29 1/2 in (60 cm x 75cm)
Courtesy the artist
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Terrils, 2009-2010

During 2009 and 2010 Hatakeyama was a photographer in residence in the Nord-Pas de Calais, a region in northern France along the Belgian border. A historically contested area often in the path of wars between France and its neighbours, the Nord became a major centre for industry in the nineteenth century due to its wealth of coal mines, steel mills, and textile factories. Today the landscape is marked by terrils, slag heaps composed of waste products from the mining process, which in the context of the region’s current economic troubles serve as monumental reminders of a prosperous industrial past.

Hatakeyama’s photographs explore the terrain from different perspectives, with conical towers of slag looming in nearly every picture. While some of the pictures expose the burnt orange soil just beneath the earth’s surface, others soften the mining site with a wintry, atmospheric haze. By transforming this man-made wasteland to the point that the viewer can no longer determine its contours, Hatakeyama reveals a complex natural environment that incorporates human developments. According to the artist, “history is not simply a list of events, but a human narrative which weaves together time and memory. The interweaving of passing time and the memory of events creates the fabric where History appears as a pattern from which each individual perceives his own personal story.” In these pictures Hatakeyama maps the traces of one such story on the landscape through the conical forms of the mining deposits. These “hills” not only serve as reminders of the ways in which the land has been used but also evoke the long-established cultural role of mountains as mythological symbols.

Wall text from the exhibition

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Bern #06201
2005
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Taka Ishii Gallery
© Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Yoneasaki-cho 2011.5.1
2011
From the series Rikuzentakata
Chromogenic print
8 3/8 in. x 10 3/8 in. (21.2 cm x 26.3cm)
Courtesy the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
© Naoya Hatakeyama

Naoya Hatakeyama’s series Rikuzentakata (2011) documents the devastating aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Throughout the series of sixty C-prints, Hatakeyama’s photographs depict scenes of torn landscapes and levelled homes, demolished villages and massive piles of detritus pummelled beyond recognition. The images serve as records of disaster, seemingly driven by an intense need to bear witness to collective trauma. Hatakeyama’s photographs, however, emerged from a painful and personal grief: the series focuses on the near-destruction of the artist’s hometown, an event which resulted in both his mother’s death and the deaths of many friends and neighbours. Rikuzentakata bears the ethical weight and responsibility of photojournalism even as its genesis comes out of a deeply felt loss and the ambiguity of survivor’s guilt. Hatakeyama suggests that what’s lost can never be fully recovered, but that with time, those wounds can slowly heal and life can begin again.

Anonymous. “Naoya Hatakeyama, 2011.4.4 Kesen-cho (Rikuzentakata series),” on the Kadist website Nd [Online[ Cited 07/09/2024

Naoya Hatakeyama (Japan, b. 1958)
Takata-cho 2011.5.2
2011
From the series Rikuzentakata
Chromogenic print
8 3/8 in. x 10 3/8 in. (21.2 cm x 26.3cm)
Courtesy the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
© Naoya Hatakeyama

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Opening hours:
Friday – Tuesday 10am – 6pm
Wednesday 10am – 5pm
Thursday 10am – 9.30pm

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website

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Exhibition: ‘Light Sensitive: Photo Art from the Collection’ at Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland

Exhibition dates: 12th May – 12th August 2012

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

Art Ringger  (Swiss, b. 1946)
Eastbourne
1996
Black-and-white photograph on aluminium, embossed
20.3 x 30.3cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau / deposited by the Andreas Züst Collection

Art Ringger  (Swiss, b. 1946)
Quimperlé
1997
Black-and-white photograph on aluminium, embossed
19.9 x 29.7cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau / deposited by the Andreas Züst Collection

Hannah Villiger  (Swiss, 1951-1997)
Arbeit
1979
Black-and-white photograph on baryte paper, matt
125 x 189.5cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau / deposited by a private collection

Claudia Böhm 
Leda
1991
Black-and-white photograph with retouching colour on paper
40 x 56cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau / deposited by the Andreas Züst Collection

Installation view of the exhibition  Light Sensitive – Photo Art from the Collection at Aargauer Kunsthaus showing photographs from Balthasar Burkhard’s work Das Knie (The Knee) 1983
Photo: Dominic Büttner, Zurich

Balthasar Burkhard (Swiss, 1944-2010)
Das Knie (The Knee) (detail)
1983
Photography on baryta paper in original iron frame and on colour canvas
270 x 91cm, photography; 150.3 x 50.3cm, colour canvas

The exhibition Light Sensitive presents works from the rich photography holdings of the Aargauer Kunsthaus. In addition, it shows photographs of urban spaces by Andreas Tschersich and works by Bianca Dugaro.

Light Sensitive is a presentation of works from the collection of the Aargauer Kunsthaus that focuses on the medium of photography. The exhibition delves into the museum’s rich and quite substantial holdings of over 800 photographic works, sounding out core themes. In the process, two thematic focus areas come to the fore: on the one hand an exploration of the human body and on the other an examination of abstract, architectural or public space.

The 20th century has seen a major shift in the status of photography as an artistic medium, a change reflected by the holdings of the Aargauer Kunsthaus. Starting out with rather small-scale works of a documentary nature, photography graduated to photo art and today naturally takes its place among the wide range of artistic media. The exhibition Light Sensitive takes us on a journey of discovery through the collection, contrasting big names with unexpected work. A series of large-scale cityscapes by Berlin-based Swiss artist Andreas Tschersich as well as works by Swiss artist Bianca Dugaro complement the presentation.

Included in the exhibition are works by, among others Claudia Böhm, Balthasar Burkhard, Marie-Antoinette Chiarenza / Daniel Hauser, Hans Danuser, Silvie Defraoui, Achim Duchow, Olivia Etter, Nicolas Faure, Marc-Antoine Fehr, Peter Fischli / David Weiss, Katrin Freisager, Max Grüter / Patrick Rohner, Simone Hopferwieser, Markus Käch, Heiner Kielholz, Fred Knecht Engelbert, Rudolf Lichtsteiner, Urs Lüthi, Max Matter, Billy Eduard Albert Meier, Claudio Moser, Marianne Müller, Anita Niesz, Guido Nussbaum, Sigmar Polke, Markus Raetz, Ursina Rösch, Annelies Štrba, Beat Streuli, Hannah Villiger.

Press release from the Aargauer Kunsthaus website

Installation view of the exhibition Light Sensitive: Photo Art from the Collection at Aargauer Kunsthaus showing the work of Andreas Tschersich including at left, Peripher 1903 (Detroit) 2011 (below); and at second left, Peripher 1337 (New York City) Nd (below)
Photo: Dominic Büttner, Zurich

Andreas Tschersich  (Swiss, b. 1971)
Peripher 1903 (Detroit)
2011
C-Print / Diasec
198 x 167cm

Andreas Tschersich  (Swiss, b. 1971)
Peripher 1337 (New York City)
Nd
C-Print / acrylic glass

Andreas Tschersich  (Swiss, b. 1971)
Peripher 1827 (Detroit)
Nd
C-Print / acrylic glass

“This engagement with the place makes it become a part of me. They have kind of grown on me. This is the reason I try, whenever possible, to revisit them to see how they are going. Normally the places have become worse or are completely gone. I seem to have the right touch for disappearing places…”

~ Andreas Tschersich

Andreas Tschersich  (Swiss, b. 1971)
Peripher 130 (Berlin)
2004
C-Print / acrylic glass
219 x 170cm

Billy Eduard Albert Meier  (Swiss, b. 1937)
Ohne Titel
1975
Photograph on paper, 8 parts
18 x 26.5cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau / deposited by the Andreas Züst Collection

Nicolas Faure  (Swiss, b. 1949)
Silvaplana (GR), Juli
1988
Colour photograph on aluminium
63 x 80cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau

Nicolas Faure  (Swiss, b. 1949)
Saas-Fee (VS), Juli
1989
Colour photograph on aluminium
63 x 80cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau

Nicolas Faure  (Swiss, b. 1949)
Le Lac Bleu. Val d’Arolla (VS), August
1997
Colour photograph on aluminium
63 x 80cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau

Born in Geneva in 1949, Nicolas Faure left his native city in 1976 to settle in New York and learn the technique of photography. Self-taught, he acquired his training by working in a lab and shooting documentary photos for publications like Time Life Books and GEO. After taking part in the 1978 group project American Vision, Faure returned to Switzerland in 1982.

Through group and individual portraits, he observed the relationship the Swiss have with clothing and popular forms of leisure (tennis, swimming pools, bicycles, etc.). In the early 1990s his art began to take shape around Swiss landscapes that had been refashioned by human beings and their activities. His body of photographic work now developed in three successive series, Pierres fétiches (fetish stones), Schweizer Autobahnen (Swiss motorways) and Paysage A (landscape A).

Text from the Collection Pictet website

Nicolas Faure  (Swiss, b. 1949)
Château d’Oex (VD), Januar
1989
Colour photograph on aluminium
63 x 80cm
Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau

Aargauer Kunsthaus
Aargauerplatz
CH-5001 Aarau
Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0) 62 835 23 30

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Thursday 10am – 8pm
Closed Mondays

Aargauer Kunsthaus website

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Exhibition: ‘Wim Wenders: Places, strange and quiet’ at Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg

Exhibition dates: 15th April – 19th August 2012

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Walled In
2005
Digital C-print
131 x 125cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

I’m not a great fan of these “moody,” “simple, composed with clean lines and brilliant colours and mostly unpopulated” photographs. Essentially, I want photography to show me something, some essence of life that I have not seen, and then let the photograph speak to me again and again, to reveal itself over weeks and years. This doesn’t happen with these photographs. They are such derivate photographs (of, for example, the great Stephen Shore) and they certainly don’t take me places that are strange and quiet.

Wenders should learn how to frame a photograph properly. The bottom left hand corner of Sun Bather, Palermo (2007, below) is just an empty negative space that simply falls out the photograph. There is no containment here, no tensioning of the diagonal of the rocks and the line of the sun beds. The photographer has even tried to “burn in” the pavement to hold up this area of image (notice how the contrast has increased!), to no avail. A poorly visualised photograph. The same can be said for the left hand side of Open Air Screen, Palermo (2007, below). The photographer simply shows no understanding of how to construct a photograph, not a film.

One photograph that takes me to a strange and quiet place is the early image Dinosaur and Family, California (1983, below). Now this really works, the light, the family, the dinosaur, the eeriness and stillness. Yes. The other photograph I really like is The Painter’s Palette, Onomichi 2005 (below), a beautifully visualised rendering of colour and form, so painterly in its affect, so unsettling in its pictorial presence.

Usually I don’t say a harsh word in my postings but not in this case. Wim Wenders, you might be a great film director but please, stay away from photography. There are more interesting places for people to go, more deserving of their energy than looking at these overrated images.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thanx to Sammlung Falckenberg and Deichtorhallen Hamburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
The Chopper
2005
Digital C-print
124.5 x 125cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Cowboy Clown, Brisbane
2006
C-print
132 x 148cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Moscow Back Yard
2006
C-print
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Policeman, Heiligendamm
2007
C-print
132 x 148cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

The Falckenberg Collection presents in cooperation with Wenders Images Berlin an exhibition of photographs by the internationally renowned filmmaker and artist Wim Wenders (b. 1945). Bringing together almost 60 images, taken from 1983 to 2011, this show entitled “Places, strange and quiet” will feature many photographs not yet exhibited in Germany including several very recent works.

For “Places, strange and quiet” Wenders has assembled a fascinating series of large scale photographs taken in countries around the world from Salvador, Brazil; Palermo, Italy; Onomichi, Japan to Berlin, Germany; Brisbane, Australia, Armenia and the United States. From his iconic images of exteriors and buildings to his panoramic depictions of towns and landscapes, the exhibition will present the full range of Wenders’ work, exploring how he created and honed remarkable images that continue to resonate powerfully.

In his own words, “When you travel a lot, and when you love to just wander around and get lost, you can end up in the strangest spots. I have a huge attraction to places. Already when I look at a map, the names of mountains, villages, rivers, lakes or landscape formations excite me, as long as I don’t know them and have never been there … I seem to have sharpened my sense of place for things that are out of place. Everybody turns right, because that’s where it’s interesting, I turn left where there is nothing! And sure enough, I soon stand in front of my sort of place. I don’t know, it must be some sort of inbuilt radar that often directs me to places that are strangely quiet, or quietly strange.”

Wim Wenders is a multi-faceted artist: a painter, actor, writer and one of the most successful contemporary filmmakers. He first made his name as a leading director of the New German Cinema in the 1970s, and became a cult figure on the international film scene by the mid 1980s. It was in 1983, while scouting for locations for Paris, Texas (1984) that he began to use photography as an art medium in its own right. Wim Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in 1945. After two years of studying medicine and philosophy and a yearlong stay in Paris as a painter he attended the University of Television and Film in Munich from 1967 to 1970.

One of the most important figures to emerge from the “New German Cinema” period in the 1970s, he was a founding member of the German film distribution “Filmverlag der Autoren” in 1971 and he established his own production company “Road Movies” in Berlin in 1975. Alongside directing atmospheric auteur films Wenders works with the medium of photography, and his poignant images of desolate landscapes engage themes including memory, time and movement. A major survey of his photography, “Pictures from the surface of the Earth,” was exhibited in museums and art institutions worldwide. Wim Wenders has published numerous books with essays and photographs.”

Press release from the Deichtorhallen Hamburg website

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Dinosaur and Family, California
1983
C-print
127.7 x 168.3 x 5cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Black Square
2002
C-print
Courtesy Wenders Images

In Black Square (2002, New Mexico), the hues of blue and red contrast with, even highlight more saliently, the decaying wall and tatty old advert, which poignantly includes the words Why Not Now. This photograph shows a deft painterly skill with colour and composition, as does Street Corner in Butte (2003, Montana), with its sharp vertical and horizontal lines and stark contrasts that render the shadows almost black. With the bleak isolation and uncanny feel here, this could be a scene from an Edward Hopper (1924-67) painting; and Wenders’ nod to Hopper is clear in films like The End of Violence (1997), in which one scene recreates the painting Nighthawks (1946).

Katy Wimhurst. “Strangely Quiet or Quietly Strange: Wim Wenders’ Photography,” on the Whimsylph Writes January 19, 2014 [Online] Cited 10/09/2024

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Street Corner Butte, Montana
2003
C-print
186 x 224cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

These massive pictures work best when they serve Wenders’ painterly eye. So much contemporary colour photography is neutrally descriptive, offering a bland, flat, digital obviousness. Intensely expressive colour gives Wenders’ most involving images a super-reality that becomes an aspect of their strangeness and quietness. On the roof of a skyscraper in São Paolo, waiting for a helicopter taxi, he notices the spectacularly vivid greens of the air-conditioning units – something soft, green, alien and slightly alarming is growing inside, around one of the rims. In a secluded back yard in Moscow, he chances upon a framed painting of a stag done in orange, green and yellow, which is in curious, almost too perfect harmony with the walls and fallen leaves. In a Hopperesque return to an empty street corner in Butte, Montana, he finds broad strokes of yellow, ochre, brown, pale green and blue; at this inflated, painterly scale, every last brick registers as a lustrous dab of pigment.

Rick Poynor. “Wim Wenders’ Strange and Quiet Places,” on the Design Observer website 21st April 2011 [Online] Cited 03/08/2024

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
The Quay Wall, Onomichi
2005
C-print
186 x 225.8cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
The Painter’s Palette, Onomichi
2005
C-print
132.6 x 133cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
On Mount Etna, Sicily
2007
C-print
186 x 213cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Sun Bather, Palermo
2007
C-print
132 x 148cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Open Air Screen, Palermo
2007
C-Print
186 x 213cm
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Ferris Wheel, Armenia
2008
C-Print
Courtesy Wenders Images

Wim Wenders (German, b. 1945)
Cemetery in the City, Tokyo
2008
Digital C-print
Courtesy Wenders Images

Sammlung Falckenberg | Phoenix Kulturstiftung
Wilstorfer Straße 71, Tor 2
21073 Hamburg – Harburg

Opening hours:
Each Sunday from 12 until 5 pm, no prior registration required

Sammlung Falckenberg website

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Exhibition: ‘Painting in Photography. Strategies of Appropriation’ at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Exhibition dates: 27th June – 23rd September 2012

Installation view of the exhibition Painting in Photography. Strategies of Appropriation at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt showing Victor Burgin’s Office at Night (Red), 1985 (below)

“To understand the production of art at the end of tradition, which in our lifetime means art at the end of modernism, requires, as the postmodern debate has shown, a careful consideration of the idea of history and the notion of ending. Rather than just thinking ending as the arrival of the finality of a fixed chronological moment, it can also be thought as a slow and indecisive process of internal decomposition that leaves in place numerous deposits of us, in us and with us – all with a considerable and complex afterlife. In this context all figuration is prefigured. This is to say that the design element of the production of a work of art, the compositional, now exists prior to the management of form of, and on, the picture plane. Techniques of assemblage, like montage and collage – which not only juxtaposed different aesthetics but also different historical moments, were the precursors of what is now the general condition of production.”

“Art Byting the Dust” Tony Fry 1990 1

They said that photography would be the death of painting. It never happened. Recently they thought that digital photography would be the death of analogue photography. It hasn’t happened for there are people who care enough about analogue photography to keep it going, no matter what. As the quotation astutely observes, the digital age has changed the conditions of production updating the techniques of montage and collage for the 21st century. Now through assemblage the composition may be prefigured but that does not mean that there are not echoes, traces and deposits of other technologies, other processes that are not evidenced in contemporary photography.

As photography influenced painting when it first appeared and vice versa (photography went through a period known as Pictorialism where where it imitated Impressionist painting), this exhibition highlights the influence of painting on later photography. Whatever process it takes photography has always been about painting with light – through a pinhole, through a microscope, through a camera lens; using light directly onto photographic paper, using the light of the scanner or the computer screen. As Paul Virilio observes, no longer is there a horizon line but the horizon square of the computer screen, still a picture plane that evidences the history of art and life. Vestiges of time and technology are somehow always present not matter what medium an artist chooses. They always have a complex afterlife and afterimage.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. I really don’t think it is a decomposition, more like a re/composition or reanimation.
PPS. Notice how Otto Steinert’s Luminogramm (1952, below), is eerily similar to some of Pierre Soulages paintings.

1/ Fry, Tony. “Art Byting the Dust,” in Hayward, Phillip. Culture, Technology and Creativity in the Late Twentieth Century. London: John Libbey and Company, 1990, pp. 169-170

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

Victor Burgin (British, b. 1941)
Office at Night (Red)
1985

In a conceptual, analytical visual language, Burgin, who originally started out as a painter, refers to Edward Hopper’s painting “Office at Night” from 1940. It shows a New York office at night, in which the boss and secretary are still at work and alone. Burgin’s picture is part of a series about this depiction of a couple by Hopper (and the special role of the female motif in his work). Burgin’s picture consists of three panels, each of which uses a fictional register: letters (word), color (red is traditionally the color for lust and love) and photographic image (secretary).

Anonymous. “Victor Burgin” in the pdf “WONDERFULLY FEMININE! Interrogations of the feminine,” on the Kunst Stiftung DZ Bank website 2009 [Online] Cited 11/09/2024. Translated from the German by Google Translate

Installation view of the exhibition Painting in Photography. Strategies of Appropriation at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt showing at left, Thomas Ruff’s Substrat 10 (2002, below)

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958)
Substrat 10
2002
C-type print
186 x 238cm
DZ BANK Kunstsammlung
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

Installation view of the exhibition Painting in Photography. Strategies of Appropriation at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt showing at centre, Wolfgang Tillmans Paper drop (window) (2006, below)

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
paper drop (window)
2006
C-type print in artists frame
145 x 200cm
Property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.
© Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Köln / Berlin
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 2008 with funds from the Städelkomitee 21. Jahrhundert

Otto Steinert (German, 1915-1978)
Ein-Fuß-Gänger
1950
Gelatin silver print
28.5 x 39cm
Courtesy Galerie Kicken Berlin
© Nachlass Otto Steinert, Museum Folkwang, Essen

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Photogram
c. 1923-1925
Unique photogram, toned printing-out paper
12.6 x 17.6cm
Courtesy Galerie Kicken Berlin
© Hattula Moholy-Nagy / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008)
10-80-C-17 (NYC)
1980
From the series: In + Out of City Limits: New York / Boston
Gelatin silver print on fibre-based paper
58 x 73cm
DZ BANK Kunstsammlung at the Städel Museum
© Estate of Robert Rauschenberg / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1948)
Sam Eric, Pennsylvania
1978
Gelatin silver print
42.5 x 54.5cm
Private collection, Frankfurt
© Hiroshi Sugimoto / Courtesy The Pace Gallery

Otto Steinert (German, 1915-1978)
Luminogramm
1952, printed c. 1952
Gelatin silver print
41.5 x 60cm
Courtesy Galerie Kicken Berlin
© Nachlass Otto Steinert, Museum Folkwang, Essen

From 27 June to 23 September 2012, the Städel Museum will show the exhibition “Painting in Photography. Strategies of Appropriation.” The comprehensive presentation will highlight the influence of painting on the imagery produced by contemporary photographic art. Based on the museum’s own collection and including important loans from the DZ Bank Kunstsammlung as well as international private collections and galleries, the exhibition at the Städel will centre on about 60 examples, among them major works by László Moholy-Nagy, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Wolfgang Tillmans, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, and Amelie von Wulffen. Whereas the influence of the medium of photography on the “classic genres of art” has already been the subject of analysis in numerous exhibitions and publications, less attention has been paid to the impact of painting on contemporary photography to date. The show at the Städel explores the reflection of painting in the photographic image by pursuing various artistic strategies of appropriation which have one thing in common: they reject the general expectation held about photography that it will document reality in an authentic way.

The key significance of photography within contemporary art and its incorporation into the collection of the Städel Museum offer an occasion to fathom the relationship between painting and photography in an exhibition. While painting dealt with the use of photography in the mass media in the 1960s, today’s photographic art shows itself seriously concerned with the conditions of painting. Again and again, photography reflects, thematises, or represents the traditional pictorial medium, maintaining an ambivalent relationship between appropriation and detachment.

Numerous works presented in the Städel’s exhibition return to the painterly abstractions of the prewar and postwar avant-gardes, translate them into the medium of photography, and thus avoid a reproduction of reality. Early examples for the adaption of techniques of painting in photography are László Moholy-Nagy’s (1895-1946) photograms dating from the 1920s. For his photographs shot without a camera, the Hungarian artist and Bauhaus teacher arranged objects on a sensitised paper; these objects left concrete marks as supposedly abstract forms under the influence of direct sunlight. In Otto Steinert’s (1915-1978) non-representational light drawings or “luminigrams,” the photographer’s movement inscribed itself directly into the sensitised film. The pictures correlate with the gestural painting of Jackson Pollock’s Abstract Expressionism. A product of random operations during the exposure and development of the photographic paper, Wolfgang Tillmans’ (b. 1968) work “Freischwimmer 54” (2004) is equally far from representing the external world. It is the pictures’ fictitious depth, transparency, and dynamics that lend Thomas Ruff’s photographic series “Substrat” its extraordinary painterly quality recalling colour field paintings or Informel works. For his series “Seascapes” the Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948) seems to have “emptied” the motif through a long exposure time: the sublime pictures of the surface of the sea and the sky – which either blur or are set off against each other – seem to transcend time and space.

In addition to the photographs mentioned, the exhibition “Painting in Photography” includes works by artists who directly draw on the history of painting in their choice of motifs. The mise-en-scène piece “Picture for Women” (1979) by the Canadian photo artist Jeff Wall (b. 1946), which relates to Édouard Manet’s famous painting “Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère” from 1882, may be cited as an example for this approach. The camera positioned in the centre of the picture reveals the mirrored scene and turns into the eye of the beholder. The fictitious landscape pictures by Beate Gütschow (b. 1970), which consist of digitally assembled fragments, recall ideal Arcadian sceneries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The photographs taken by Italian Luigi Ghirri (1943-1992) in the studio of Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) “copy” Morandi’s still lifes by representing the real objects in the painter’s studio instead of his paintings.

Another appropriative strategy sees the artist actually becoming active as a painter, transforming either the object he has photographed or its photographic representation. Oliver Boberg’s, Richard Hamilton’s, Georges Rousse’s and Amelie von Wulffen’s works rank in this category. For her series “Stadtcollagen” (1998-1999) Amelie von Wulffen (b. 1966) assembled drawing, photography, and painting to arrive at the montage of a new reality. The artist’s recollections merge with imaginary spaces offering the viewer’s fantasy an opportunity for his or her own associations.

The exhibition also encompasses positions of photography for which painting is the object represented in the picture. The most prominent examples in this section come from Sherrie Levine (b. 1947) and Louise Lawler (b. 1947), both representatives of US Appropriation Art. From the late 1970s on, Levine and Lawler have photographically appropriated originals from art history. Levine uses reproductions of paintings from a catalogue published in the 1920s: she photographs them and makes lithographs of her pictures. Lawler photographs works of art in private rooms, museums, and galleries and thus rather elucidates the works’ art world context than the works as such.

Press release from the Städel Museum website

Sherrie Levine (American, b. 1947)
After Edgar Degas (detail)
1987
5 lithographs on hand-made paper
69 x 56cm
DZ BANK Kunstsammlung im Städel Museum, Frankfurt
© Sherrie Levine / Courtesy Jablonka Galerie, Köln

Beate Gütschow (German, b. 1970)
PN #1
2000
C-Print, mounted on aluminium dibond
Acquired in 2013, property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Eigentum des Städelschen Museums-Vereins e.V.

… these images do not evoke a sense of the sublime. On closer inspection, not only is the virginity of nature lost forever, but the innocence of perception is also denied. The natural realms presented here are simply too beautiful to be true. The beauty, wildness, and potentially threatening aspects of nature have been skillfully merged into a decorative whole, as they were in landscape painting from the 17th through to the 19th century. Beate Gütschow’s photographic works reproduce traditional patterns of depiction, incorporating landscape elements that recall compositions by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-1682), Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), John Constable (1776-1837), and Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810). The subjects portrayed by these landscape painters were based on an idealised worldview, the construction of which reflected the dominant philosophical ethos of their time. The artists themselves, however, presented this ideal in a manner bordering on the absolute. …

Beate Gütschow photographs landscapes with a medium-format analog camera, then converts the images into digital files. From this archived material she then constructs new landscapes in Photoshop, basing their spatial arrangements and compositional structures on the principles of landscape painting. As part of this subsequent editing process, she adjusts the light and colours in the images, applying lighting techniques from the realm of painting to her photographs. Because Gütschow uses only the retouching tool and other traditional darkroom techniques offered by Photoshop, not its painting tools, the photographic surface is preserved and the joins between the component parts are not immediately visible. These digital tools make it possible to employ a painterly method without the resulting picture being a painting. The viewer is given the impression that this is a completely normal photograph. When, however, an ideal landscape is presented in the form of a photograph, it appears more unnatural than the painted version of the same view. In this way, Gütschow’s work explores concepts of representation, colour, and light – the formal attributes of painting and photography – as well as the distinctions between documentation and staging.

Extract from Gebbers, Anna-Catharina. “Larger than Life,” in Beate Gütschow: ZISLS. Heidelberg, 2016, pp. 8-17. Translated by Jacqueline Todd [Online] Cited 23/08/2022

Luigi Ghirri (Italian, 1943-1992)
L’atelier de Giorgio Morandi, Bologne
1989

Luigi Ghirri (5 January 1943 – 14 February 1992) was an Italian artist and photographer who gained a far-reaching reputation as a pioneer and master of contemporary photography, with particular reference to its relationship between fiction and reality.

Amelie von Wulffen (German, b. 1966)
Untitled (City Collages, VIII)
1998
Oil paint, photographs on paper
42 x 59.7cm
Acquired in 2009 with funds from the Städelkomitee 21. Jahrhundert, property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Eigentum des Städelschen Museums-Vereins e.V.

The starting point for Amelie von Wulffen’s city collages is the urban architecture which she has photographed herself. These photographs are affixed to a surface and then processed pictorially: the artist alienates the perspective, adds abstract patterns and confronts the scene with quirky objects. The painted forms and unreal connections intervene in the relationship to reality of the supposedly objective photograph. The combination of photograph and painting is accompanied by a reflection on the characteristics of the medium concerned. The photographic reproduction of a situation which has been experienced may adequately record the place but not necessarily the memory. With this in mind, the artist sees painting as a suitable medium to equip photography with an authentic means of expression. During the chemical process of photography, real objects are registered on the light-sensitive material, just as the mood of the place and the memory of the artist are translated into the painting process. With regard to form, Wulffen reveals a wealth of references to Constructivism, Surrealism and Dadaism.

Text from the Städel Museum website

Art after 1945: Amelie von Wulffen

In our “Art after 1945” series, artists introduce their artworks in the Städel collection. In this episode Amelie von Wulffen explains her series “Stadtcollagen”.

Jeff Wall (Canadian, b. 1946)
Picture for Women
1979
Cibachrome transparency in lightbox
204.5 × 142.5cm (80.5 in × 56.1 in)

Picture for Women is a photographic work by Canadian artist Jeff Wall. Produced in 1979, Picture for Women is a key early work in Wall’s career and exemplifies a number of conceptual, material and visual concerns found in his art throughout the 1980s and 1990s. An influential photographic work, Picture for Women is a response to Édouard Manet’s Un bar aux Folies Bergère and is a key photograph in the shift from small-scale black and white photographs to large-scale colour that took place in the 1980s in art photography and museum exhibitions. …

Picture for Women is a 142.5 by 204.5 cm Cibachrome transparency mounted on a lightbox. Along with The Destroyed Room (1978), Wall considers Picture for Women to be his first success in challenging photographic tradition. According to Tate Modern, this success allows Wall to reference “both popular culture (the illuminated signs of cinema and advertising hoardings) and the sense of scale he admires in classical painting. As three-dimensional objects, the lightboxes take on a sculptural presence, impacting on the viewer’s physical sense of orientation in relationship to the work.”

Text from the Wikipedia website

Louise Lawler (American, b. 1947)
It Could Be Elvis
1994
Cibachrome, varnished with shellac
74.5 x 91cm
DZ BANK Kunstsammlung at the Städel Museum
© Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

Oliver Boberg (German, b. 1965)
Unterführung [Underpass]
1997
C-type print
75 x 84cm
DZ BANK Kunstsammlung
© Oliver Boberg / Courtesy L.A. Galerie – Lothar Albrecht, Frankfurt

Richard Hamilton (English, 1922-2011)
Eight-Self-Portraits (detail)
1994
Thermal dye sublimation prints
40 x 35cm
DZ BANK Kunstsammlung
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968)
Freischwimmer 54
2004
C-type in artists frame
237 x 181 x 6cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
© Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Köln / Berlin
Acquired in 2008 with funds from the Städelkomitee 21. Jahrhundert
Property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.

Städel Museum
Schaumainkai 63
60596 Frankfurt

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
Closed Mondays

Städel Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Maestro: Recent Works by Lino Tagliapietra’ at the Museum of Glass, Tacoma

Exhibition dates: 14th July – 6th January 2013

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Fuji
2011
Blown glass
16 3/4 x 19 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches
Photo by Russell Johnson

Oh my, oh my, oh my these are just divine, especially the last three.

Marcus

Many thankx to the Museum of Glass for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All works by Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, born 1934). Courtesy of Lino Tagliapietra, Inc. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Masai (Masai d’Oro)
2011
Blown glass
59 x 98 x 10 inches
Photo by Russell Johnson

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Petra
2012
Blown glass
10 x 15 x 5 1/4 inches
Photo by Russell Johnson

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Borboleta (il giardino di farfalle)
2011
Blown glass
26 x 157 x 118 inches
Photo by Francesco Allegretto

Museum of Glass marks its 10th Anniversary with a new exhibition featuring the work of esteemed artist Lino Tagliapietra. Maestro: Recent Works by Lino Tagliapietra showcases 65 glass masterpieces created during the past decade (2002-2012). The exhibition opens Saturday, July 14, amidst the anniversary celebration weekend.

Tagliapietra is known internationally as the maestro of contemporary glass. Beginning at the age of eleven, he was trained by Muranese glass masters, perfecting his glassblowing skills through years of observation, repetition, and production. In subsequent years, his precision and mastery of molten glass became secondary to his creative expression. Tagliapietra has invented numerous new techniques and designs, creating works that are technically flawless and visually breathtaking – belying the complexity and difficulty of their creation.These works have positioned him as a cultural icon not only in the glass world but also as a seminal figure in contemporary art and have earned him the reputation as “the greatest living glassblower” by many of his peers.

At age 77, when most glassblowers have long since retired from a lifetime of strenuous physical work, Tagliapietra continues to expand his artistic achievement, earning numerous artistic and scholastic awards and being featured in solo and group exhibitions. “I hope that people see the love, the love for the material, the love for the fire. For the art I try to be honest with myself. That’s all.”

Maestro presents an overview of Tagliapieta’s most recent series. The works displayed demonstrate his evolution to larger works and use of bolder colours and patterns over his nearly fifty years as an artist. Six large-scale installations, featuring colourful butterflies (Borboleta), boats (Endeavor), seagulls (Gabbiani) and two separate collections of shields (Masai), are central to the exhibition. The final installation, a 79 x 40-inch curio case containing nearly one hundred opaque glass vessels, is titled Avventura which is Italian for ‘adventure’ and references Tagliapietra’s view of the unpredictable nature of molten glass. Some of the objects in the exhibition were created at Museum of Glass during one of Tagliapietra’s several Visiting Artist residencies in the Hot Shop.

“It is a privilege to host this exhibition – yet another salute to Lino’s lifetime of artistic achievement – at Museum of Glass,” comments executive director Susan Warner. “This body of work was created during the same timeframe that the Museum has been in existence. To celebrate this magnificent artist – who has influenced and inspired so many of the artists and visitors who have come through our doors – while we celebrate our first decade of service is very fitting.”

Press release from Museum of Glass website

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Saturno
2011
Blown glass
27 x 34 x 7 inches
Photo by Francesco Allegretto

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Tatoosh
2009
Blown glass
26 1/2 x 12 3/4 x 8 inches
Photo by Russell Johnson

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Maui
2010
Blown glass
28 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 7 inches
Photo by Russell Johnson

Lino Tagliapietra (Italian, b. 1934)
Dinosaur
2011
Blown glass
55 3/4 x 26 x 10 1/4 inches
Photo by Russell Johnson

Museum of Glass
1801 Dock Street
Tacoma, WA 98402

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Monday and Tuesday closed

Museum of Glass website

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Exhibition: ‘Eugène Atget, Paris’ at the Carnavalet Museum, Paris

Exhibition dates: 25th April – 29th July 2012

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Heurtoir à tête de lion, hôtel de la Monnaie, quai Conti, 6e arrondissement
(Lion head knocker, Hotel Monnaie, Quai Conti, 6th District)
September 1900
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet/ Roger-Viollet

More photographs from the master, including some of the less well known figurative work. The exhibition has been rating its socks off, with long queues and people being stopped from entering until the crowds inside have dissipated, so that people can actually see the small prints. Being a Leo the image of the lion’s head (Heurtoir à tête de lion, 1900, above) is my favourite in the posting, which is why it’s at the top. Owning an Atget. It has a nice ring to it. Just imagine owning this Atget. I would be in a spin for days!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Chevet de l’église Saint-Séverin, rue Saint-Jacques, 5ème arrondissement, Paris
1908
Albumen paper print
Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris
CC0 Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
La Conciergerie et la Seine, brouillard en hiver, 1er arrondissement
(The Conciergerie and the Seine, fog in winter, 1st district)
1923
Print on matte albumen paper
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Coin de la rue Valette et Pantheon, 5e arrondissement, matinee de mars
1925
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Le Dôme, boulevard Montparnasse
June 1925
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Rue Hautefeuille, 6e arrondissement
1898
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Fontaine de l’Observatoire, par le sculpteur Carpeaux, jardin Marco-Polo, vue prise vers le jardin du Luxembourg, 6e arrondissement
(Fountain of the Observatory, by the sculptor Carpeaux, Marco Polo Garden, view towards the Luxembourg gardens, the sixth borough)
1902
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Cabaret au Tambour, 62 quai de la Tournelle, 5th arrodissement
1908
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

In spring 2012, the Carnavalet Museum presents the Parisian work of one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, Eugène Atget (Libourne, 1857 – Paris, 1927). The exhibition proposes a selection of 230 prints created in Paris between 1898 and 1927 from the collections of the Carnavalet Museum, in addition to those of the George Eastman House in Rochester and the collections of the Fundación Mapfre in Madrid.

This retrospective, which brings together some well-known images and others previously unseen, paints an unusual portrait of the capital, far from the clichés of the Belle Époque. Visitors will discover the streets of the Paris of old, the gardens, the quays of the Seine, the former boutiques and the travelling salesmen. Atget’s photographs also reveal the changes in his processes: when he started out, this self-taught photographer tried to bring together landscapes and motifs and then images of Paris streets, in order to sell them to artists as models. It was when he dedicated himself to the streets of Paris that he attracted the attention of prestigious institutions such as the Carnavalet Museum and the National Library, which were to become his main clients until the end of his life.

In addition, one room in the exhibition is dedicated to the presentation of a series of 43 photograph prints, collected in the 1920s by the American artist Man Ray. This album, which is currently kept in Rochester (United States), allows visitors to gain a better understanding of Atget’s influence on the Surrealists. Reflecting on Atget’s prints, the public will also discover the work of Emmanuel Pottier (Meslaydu-Maine, 1864 – Paris, 1921), his practically unknown contemporary who, like other photographers, explored the subject of picturesque Paris.

Press release from the Carnavalet Museum website

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Hôtel des abbés de Fecamp, 3 rue Hautefeuille, 6ème arrondissement, Paris
1902
Albumen paper print
Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris
CC0 Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Porte d’Asnières (gate), Cité Valmy (17th arr.), chiffonniers (rag-and-bone men)
1913
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget is known for his views of Paris streets and parks from the early 20th century. Equipped with a tripod, an 18 x 24 cm camera, glass plates with the same dimensions and a black cover, he captured street scenes, beautiful façades or out-of-the-way courtyards. The Carnavalet Museum was one of his first clients and conserves over 9,100 prints by this photographer.

In 1913, Atget became interested in a section of Paris that was scheduled to disappear. This was the “Zone”, unbuildable land that extended beyond the old fortifications built under Louis Philippe between 1841 and 1844. From the beginning, this area was the totally illegal refuge for the poorest of the poor, in particular day labourers and ragmen. They lived there and developed their activities of collection and sorting. Atget’s photos reveal the precarious circumstances of the families that lived and worked in these insalubrious lodgings, without dwelling on their misery. A place with a sulfurous and disquieting reputation, the Zone is represented without pathos or romanticism.

Text from the Carnavalet website

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Chanteuse de rue et joueur d’orgue de Barbarie
(Street singer and organ player of Barbary)
1898
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Marchand ambulant, place Saint-Médard, 5e arrondissement
(Peddler, Place Saint-Médard, 5th District)
Septembre 1899
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Chiffonier (Ragpicker)
1899
Albumen paper print
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Cabaret “Au Port Salut,” marchande de coquillages, rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, 5e arrondissement
(Cabaret “At Port Salut,” Merchant of shells, Rue des Fosses-Saint-Jacques, 5th District)
1903
Albumen print mounted on blue grey cardboard
Paris, musée Carnavalet
© Eugène Atget / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
“Hotel des Deux Lions”, rue des Ursins, 4ème arrondissement, Paris
1923
Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris
CC0 Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Rue Asseline
1924-1925
Gelatin aristotype
Collection Man Ray 1926
© Eugène Atget/Album de Man Ray, George Eastman House

Carnavalet Museum
23, rue de Sévigné
75003 Paris
Phone: 01 44 59 58 58

Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm,
except Mondays and public holidays

Carnavalet Museum website

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Review: ‘Lost & Found: Family Photos Swept away by the 3.11 East Japan Tsunami’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 1st June – 15th July 2012

This is a profound exhibition of photographs that have been lost then found. Too damaged to be returned to the families of their missing owners after the 3.11 East Japan Tsunami they have been cleaned, dried, digitally catalogued and put on display. As remnants of disaster they have taken on an ethereal, abstract expressionist beauty.

Like Atget’s photographs (his “documents for artists”) they were never meant to be “art”, but through morphogenesis (‘beginning of the shape’) these snapshots of places, family and friends reveal their inherent form. This beginning of form has been exposed through displacement, washing and erasure. Through this process of erasure these anonymous images reveal their underlying structure with its link to alchemy, as the image dis/appears from view; they have become unfixed (as in the fixer that stabilises the image in the analogue darkroom) from reality. In this process they have become art.

The images are incredibly beautiful.

They hid secrets (of ownership, names, families and places, of time and space).

Something (energy, spirit?) emerges when you least expect it.

Photographs are coded, but usually so as to appear uncoded but here the link to the indexicality of the image – the idea of the visible as evidence of truth – has been broken. These photographs, taken out of their original context, have lost their specific use value in the particular time and place of their consumption. The fragmentation of this use value, together with the dissolution of their formal characteristics, means that they are freed of the conditions that limit and determine their meaning.1 As Annette Kuhn has written in The Power of the Image, “Meanings do not reside in images, then: they are circulated between representation, spectator and social function.”2 And in these images all three things have changed.

Further, the link between the image and its referent, the photograph and the thing being photographed has been irreversibly broken. As the French critic Maurice Blanchot has written, “The image has nothing to do with signification, meaning, as implied by the existence of the world, the effort of truth, the law and the brightness of the day. Not only is the image of an object not the meaning of that object and of no help in comprehending it, but it tends to withdraw it from its meaning by maintaining it in the immobility of a resemblance that it has nothing to resemble.”3 In other words (and especially in these photographs) it is this severance of meaning and its object, this resemblance of nothing.

But think about this idea:

THINK ABOUT THE IDEA OF RE(AS)SEMBLANCE!

DOES THE PHOTOGRAPH REASSEMBLE A SIGNIFICATION, A MEANING WHOLLY ITS OWN, OR IS THAT RE(AS)SEMBLANCE PART OF THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE OBJECT PHOTOGRAPHED?

In these photographs there is an obfuscation of reality in which the usually coded photographs now appear to be uncoded in some visceral sense. In fact there is a double obfuscation, a double effacement, as the images are displayed on the wall like a series of bathroom tiles in plastic sleeves, here not at one remove but at two (the clouding of the image and the clouding through the plastic). What emerges from this alchemical miasma is the ghost of the meaning of the object, where we acknowledge that the essence of these people did really exist. The recognition of their presence, this partial reassemblance of the context and meaning of the object originally photographed, is the strength of these images: our acknowledgment of some form of existence in the trace of the photograph, where seeing is subconsciously believing.

What we are left with in these images are vestiges of presence, remnants or traces of people that have passed on. In a kind of divine intervention, these photographs ask the viewer questions about the one fact that we cannot avoid in our lives, our own mortality, and what remains after we pass on. We can never know these people and places, just as we can never know the place and time of our death – when our “time” is up – but these photographs awaken in us a subconscious remembering: that we may be found (in life), then lost (through death), then found again in the gaze of the viewer looking at the photographs in the future present. We are (dis)continuous beings.

There is no one single reading of these photographs for “there are only competing narratives and interpretations of a world that cannot be wholly, accurately described.”4 These indescribable photographs impinge on our consciousness calling on us to remember even as the speed of contemporary life asks us to forget. This ethical act of looking, of mourning and remembering, of paying homage to presence acknowledges that we choose not to let pass into the dark night of the soul these traces of our forebears, for each emanation is deeply embedded within individual and cultural memory.

These photographs are a contemporary form of Western ‘dreaming’ in which we feel a link to the collective human experience. In this reification, we bear witness to the (re)assemblance of life, the abstract made (subconsciously) concrete, as material thing. These images of absent presence certainly reached out and touched my soul.

Vividly, I choose to remember rather than to forget.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Footnotes

1/ Kuhn, Annette. The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985, p. 6

2/ Ibid.,

3/ Blanchot, Maurice. The Gaze of Orpheus. New York: Barrytown, 1981, p. 85

4/ Townsend, Chris. Vile Bodies: Photography and the Crisis of Looking. Munich: Prestel, 1998, p. 10

Many thankx to Munemasa Takahashi, Kristian Haggblom and Karra Rees for their help and the CCP for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs to view a larger version of the image.

Opening of the Lost & Found exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne

Lost & Found is a profoundly moving exhibition of collected photographs recovered from the devastation following the earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear catastrophe that took place in the Tohoku region in 2011.   The tsunami not only swept the harbour away, but also houses, cars, trains; and many people lost their lives. Although no longer in the media, people in this region are still in great need. These photographs remind us of their presence and make us aware of their silent voices. The exhibition also gives us an opportunity to think about the relationship people have with their photographs.

The Lost & Found project is attempting to return pictures from the collection to their owners by cleaning, cataloguing and creating a digital database of the photographs. Many images were too badly damaged and can not be returned; rather than discard them, the project team decided to exhibit the imagery and give people the opportunity to see these photographs in the belief that they carry powerful messages.   This project was initiated by Munemasa Takahashi and Hiroshi Hatate in Japan and Kristian Haggblom from Wallflower Photomedia Gallery in Australia. Funds raised will go directly to the people of Yamamoto-cho.

Text from the CCP website