Tag: colour photography

Exhibition: ‘Color Correction’ by Ernst Haas at Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 20th January – 25th February 2012

 

Many thankx to Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 
'New York' 1980

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)

New York
1980
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

 

“No photographer has worked more successfully to express the sheer physical joy of seeing.”


John Szarkowski

 

“Bored with obvious reality, I find my fascination in transforming it into a subjective point of view. Without touching my subject I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes more made than taken. Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself – less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive; less prose, more poetry.”


Ernst Haas from “About Color Photography,” in DU, 1961

 

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Rush Hour, New York City' Nd

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Rush Hour, New York City
Nd
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' Nd

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
Nd
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' Nd

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
Nd
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' Nd

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
Nd
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Feed Line, New York City, USA' Nd

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Feed Line, New York City, USA
Nd
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' Nd

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
Nd
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City' 1951

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City
1951
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Food Day, New York City, USA' 1953

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Food Day, New York City, USA
1953
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) '3rd Avenue, Reflection, New York City' 1952

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
3rd Avenue, Reflection, New York City
1952
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1953

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1953
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Paris, France' 1954

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Paris, France
1954
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Frigidaire, Paris' 1954

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Frigidaire, Paris
1954
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City' 1955

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City
1955
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) '
New Orleans' 1957

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)

New Orleans
1957
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Park Avenue Taxis' 1958

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Park Avenue Taxis
1958
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) '
New Orleans, USA' 1960

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)

New Orleans, USA
1960
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1962

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1962
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1962

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1962
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Traffic, Mexico City' 1963

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Traffic, Mexico City
1963
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1963

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1963
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Lights of New York City, New York City' 1966

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Lights of New York City, New York City
1966
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Torn Poster I, Wave, NYC' 1968

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Torn Poster I, Wave, NYC
1968
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1968

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1968
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Greenwich Village, New York City, USA' 1970

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Greenwich Village, New York City, USA
1970
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'California, USA' 1970

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
California, USA
1970
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1972

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1972
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1973

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1973
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1974

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1974
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

“Making his first color photographs in 1949, Haas was a member of the prestigious Magnum agency. Known mainly for his commissioned work, whereby he created influential imagery such as iconic Marlboro Man advertisements long before other artists were commissioned to do so, Haas’ work would come to have great influence on later artists, such as Richard Prince, Marc Quinn or Robert Longo. Using color also for his personal work, with a pictorial language recalling at times the works by painter Edward Hopper, Haas has been described as a poet photographer. Haas cropped and abstracted, photographed against the light and out of focus, and used reflections and close-ups to mystify the visible. Interested in the everyday,as well, some of his personal photographs remind of the likes of Lee Friedlander or Stephan Shore.”

Anonymous. “Ernst Haas: Color Correction,” on the Lens Culture website Nd [Online] Cited 15/11/2024

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New Mexico, USA' 1975

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New Mexico, USA
1975
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
 'Western Skies Motel' 1978

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Western Skies Motel
1978
C-Print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1981

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1981
C-Print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'St Louis, Missouri, USA' 1986

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
St Louis, Missouri, USA
1986
C-Print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

 

Christophe Guye Galerie is proud to present Color Correction: by one of the most important and influential artists in the development of colour photography and the history of the medium on a whole, this exhibition spotlights a body of work that poignantly describes the complex ways in which an artist’s ‘career’ took form. Ernst Haas belonged to the best known, most productive and widely published photographers of the twentieth century. Most commonly associated with vibrant colour photography, Haas was famed for his commercial work. It is undoubtedly however his other, private work that really illuminates the power of his sensibility and his true mastery. Unfortunately this side of his creative output has been kept private and thus escaped posthumous appreciation. It is only now, with the efforts and belief in Haas’ ability of a few, such as William Ewing, former Director of the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, that this body of work is finally revealed and justly let’s this artist’s aptitude shine. The exhibition Color Correction, and Ewing’s corresponding book published by Steidl, uncovers, with an exciting and novel view, the “other” side of Ernst Haas’ visionary.

Color Correction is the first exhibition in Switzerland to present the to-date little known, non-commission work by the late Austrian-born photographer. Uncovering a new side to a much celebrated body of work, the show will include fifteen new and mostly never before seen large format works, alongside a handpicked selection of rare, vintage dye-transfer prints from the 1950s and ’60s. These astoundingly complex and ultimately enveloping pieces form a group exhibited under the title Colour Correction to coincide with the recent Steidl publication Color Correction, by William Ewing.”These images are of great sophistication, and rival (and sometimes surpass) the best of his colleagues”, says Ewing, revealing works “far more edgy, loose, enigmatic, and ambiguous than his celebrated work.”

“Color correction” is a term used in printing, through which the inked proofs are brought into as close equivalence as possible with the original photograph. Ewing has chosen to use the term metaphorically, to suggest “we owe it to Ernst Haas and our understanding of the history of colour photography, to reevaluate his importance in light of this marvellous imagery, kept under wraps for so many years.” It was in 1962 that the first ever colour photography exhibition, Ernst Haas Color Photography, was held at the prestigious MoMA in New York, and not until fourteen years later would colour photography be given another show at the museum with Color Photography by William Eggleston. Though introducing Haas’ work to a large audience and a major milestone in the history of the medium it would not come to have the same effect on the development of the artist’s career. On the contrary: an exhibition planned by Edward Steichen, renowned photographer and curator of MoMA at the time, it was in the end his predecessor John Szakowski who would actually see it realised. With this shift in curatorial visionary, Szakowski would enforce a different taste. Having the duty to complete Steichen’s idea, but keen to champion his own and dissimilar ideas, Szakowski’s enthusiasm regarding the artist and the exhibition Ernst Haas Color Photography was meek, the praise in his accompanying texts all but faint. Steichen, once in favour of Pictorialism, thus a subjective photography, valued Haas’ profound use of the camera, while Szakowski on the other hand chose to favour a less embellished sentiment; a more hardedge modernist inspired American approach. It was this disregard and clashing of personal agendas that would ultimately and erroneously see Haas excluded from the canon of colour photography; his indisputable talent became the victim of the cyclical debate of what art photography should be.

Making his first colour photographs in 1949, Haas was a member of the prestigious Magnum agency. Known mainly for his commissioned work, whereby he created influential imagery such as iconic Marlboro Man advertisements long before other artists were commissioned to do so, Haas’ work would come to have great influence on later artists, such as Richard Prince, Marc Quinn or Robert Longo. Using colour also for his personal work, with a pictorial language recalling at times the works by painter Edward Hopper, Haas has been described as a poet photographer. By no means the first to use the medium in colour, he was said to be “the first to do it masterfully.” Visionary, Haas early on cropped and abstracted, photographing against the light and out of focus, using reflections, close-up to mystify the visible, abstraction of colour and texture. Interested in the everyday, his photographs remind of the likes of Lee Friedlander or Stephan Shore, but rather than documents his works are “vignettes of personal experience.” The works on display in Color Correction reveal this more abstract side of the artist’s oeuvre.

Haas’ work never received the recognition it deserved. The works presented at Christophe Guye Galerie are based upon this dispute, attempting to reveal the true ability of Haas’ work and restore his rightful place in the medium’s canon.

Haas’ formal language echoes decades past while being extremely contemporary at once. Often shooting inches away from the subject at acute and unexpected angles, Haas work was visionary. Lyrical, evocative, and expressive, while at the same time exact, the artist moved away from obvious reality, finding fascination in transforming it into a subjective point of view. The works on view are to be understood not as informative but as creative; description gives way to suggestion. Color Correction – the exhibition as well as the book – show works that are rich, vibrant, and intelligent alike. With this new view on the body of work of one of the medium’s most important advocates, Color Correction hopes to evoke the excitement Steichen expressed when he first came across Haas imaginarium of seeing: “In my estimation we have experienced an epoch in photography. Here is a free spirit, untrammelled by tradition and theory, who has gone out and found beauty unparalleled in photography.”

Press release from the Christophe Guye Galerie website

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City' 1952

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City
1952
C-print, later print
76.2 x 101.6cm (30 x 40 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Brooklyn, New York' 1952

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Brooklyn, New York
1952
C-print, later print
101.6 x 76.2cm (40 x 30 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1952

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1952
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1955

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1955
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Bronco Rider, California' 1957

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Bronco Rider, California
1957
C-print, later print
101.6 x 76.2cm (40 x 30 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'New York City, USA' 1963

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
New York City, USA
1963
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Los Angeles, California, USA' 1963

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Los Angeles, California, USA
1963
C-print, later print
101.6 x 76.2cm (40 x 30 in)
Edition of 15
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'Cafe Boi Charbon, Caen, France' 1976

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
Cafe Boi Charbon, Caen, France
1976
C-print, later print
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986) 'California, USA' 1976

 

Ernst Haas (American, 1921-1986)
California, USA
1976
C-print, later print
101.6 x 76.2cm (40 x 30 in)
Courtesy of Ernst Haas and Christophe Guye Galerie

 

 

Christophe Guye Galerie
Dufourstrasse 31
8008 Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 252 01 11

Opening hours:
Monday to Friday 10am – 6pm
Saturday 11am – 4pm

Christophe Guye Galerie website

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Exhibition: ‘Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Exhibition dates: 10th November 2010 – 10th April 2011

 

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

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'The Terminal' 1893

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Terminal
1893, printed 1920s-30s
Gelatin silver print
8.9 x 11.5cm (3 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

As proprietor of the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession and publisher of the photographic journals Camera Notes and later Camera Work, Stieglitz was a major force in the promotion and elevation of photography as a fine art in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His own photographs had an equally revolutionary impact on the advancement of the medium.

Stieglitz took this picture using a small 4 x 5″ camera, an instrument not considered at the time to be worthy of artistic photography. Unlike the unwieldy 8 x 10″ view camera (which required a tripod), this camera gave Stieglitz greater freedom and mobility to roam the city and respond quickly to the everchanging street life around him. The Terminal predicts by over a decade the radical transformation of the medium from painterly prints of rarified subjects to what the critic Sadakichi Hartmann dubbed “straight photography.” This new photography would take as its subject matter the quotidian aspects of modern, urban life, using only techniques that are unique to the medium.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Edward Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879-1973) 'The Little Round Mirror' 1901, printed 1905

 

Edward Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973)
The Little Round Mirror
1901, printed 1905
Gum bichromate over platinum print
48.3 x 33.2cm (19 x 13 1/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'The Hand of Man' 1902

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Hand of Man
1902, printed 1910
Photogravure
24.2 x 31.9cm (9 1/2 x 12 9/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

The Hand of Man was first published in January 1903 in the inaugural issue of Camera Work. With this image of a lone locomotive chugging through the train yards of Long Island City, Stieglitz showed that a gritty urban landscape could have an atmospheric beauty and a symbolic value as potent as those of an unspoiled natural landscape. The title alludes to this modern transformation of the landscape and also perhaps to photography itself as a mechanical process. Stieglitz believed that a mechanical instrument such as the camera could be transformed into a tool for creating art when guided by the hand and sensibility of an artist.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Edward Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879-1973) 'The Flatiron' 1904

 

Edward Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973)
The Flatiron
1904
Gum bichromate over platinum print
47.8 x 38.4cm (18 13/16 x 15 1/8 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933

 

Edward Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879-1973) 'Alfred Stieglitz' 1907

 

Edward Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973)
Alfred Stieglitz
1907
Autochrome
23.9 x 18cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1955

 

For the first time in more than 25 years, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display five of its original Autochromes by Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz for one week only – January 25-30, 2011 – as part of the current exhibition Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand. Invented by Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1907, Autochromes are one-of-a-kind color transparencies that are seductively beautiful when backlit.

The invention of the Autochrome was a milestone in the history of photography. It was the first commercially available means of making color photographs. Steichen was enthralled by the process and recommended it to his fellow photographers. Praising the luminosity of the new medium, he wrote, “One must go to stained glass for such color resonance, as the palette and canvas are a dull and lifeless medium in comparison.” Among the five Autochromes exhibited are Steichen’s portrait of Rodin in front of his sculpture The Eve and his widely reproduced portrait of Stieglitz holding an issue of his influential publication, Camera Work.

These fragile photographs – composed of minute grains of potato starch dyed red, blue, and green – cannot withstand the exposure of long-term display without suffering irreversible damage. Because of the high risk of the color fading, the Metropolitan – like most museums – has had a policy of not exhibiting its important collection of Autochromes. The Metropolitan recently completed a three-year study of the stability and light-sensitivity of Autochrome dyes, conducted by Luisa Casella, the Museum’s first Mellon Research Scholar in Photo Conservation, in close collaboration with Masahiko Tsukada of the Museum’s Department of Scientific Research, and supervised by Nora Kennedy, Sherman Fairchild Conservator of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum. The study established that the Autochrome dyes are partially, though not completely, protected from light fading when in an environment where all oxygen has been removed.

Guided by this research, the Museum will display five original Autochromes by Steichen and Stieglitz within individual oxygen-free enclosures and under carefully controlled lighting conditions from January 25 to 30 in the exhibition Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand. During the other weeks of the exhibition, facsimiles of the photographs are displayed in their place.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Edward J. Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973) 'Balzac, The Open Sky - 11 P.M.' 1908

 

Edward J. Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973)
Balzac, The Open Sky – 11 P.M.
1908, printed 1909
Direct carbon print
48.7 x 38.5cm (19 3/16 x 15 3/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933

 

In late summer 1908 Rodin moved the plaster of his sculpture of the French writer Honoré de Balzac out of his studio and into the open air so that Steichen, who disliked its chalky aspect in the daylight, could photograph it by the moon. Waiting through several exposures as long as an hour each, Steichen made this exposure at 11 p.m., when the moonlight transformed the plaster into a monumental phantom rising above the brooding nocturnal landscape. Steichen recalled that when he presented his finished prints some weeks later, an elated Rodin exclaimed: “You will make the world understand my Balzac through your pictures. They are like Christ walking on the desert.”

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

 

Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand

Go behind the lens with Sarah Greenough and Joel Smith as they speak about the relationships between three giants of early twentieth-century photography – Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand – whose diverse and groundbreaking works are among the Metropolitan’s greatest photographic treasures. Followed by a discussion among the participants. Malcolm Daniel, Curator in Charge, Department of Photographs, MMA, introduces the program.

“Steichen, Stieglitz, and the Art of Change”
Joel Smith, Curator of Photography, Princeton University Art Museum

“Stieglitz and Strand: Mentor and Protégé/Friend and Rival”
Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator of Photographs, National Gallery
of Art, Washington.

 

 

Stieglitz and the New York Art Scene (1905-46)

Lisa M. Messinger, associate curator, Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

Three giants of 20th-century American photography – Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand – are featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, through April 10, 2011, in the exhibition Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand. The diverse and groundbreaking work of these artists will be revealed through a presentation of 115 photographs, drawn entirely from the Museum’s collection. On view will be many of the Metropolitan’s greatest photographic treasures from the 1900s to 1920s, including Stieglitz’s famous portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe, Steichen’s large coloured photographs of the Flatiron building, and Strand’s pioneering abstractions.

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a photographer of supreme accomplishment and a forceful and influential advocate for photography and modern art through his gallery “291” and his sumptuous journal Camera Work. Stieglitz also laid the foundation for the Museum’s collection of photographs. In 1928, he donated 22 of his own works to the Metropolitan; these were the first photographs to enter the Museum’s collection as works of art. In later decades he gave the Museum more than 600 photographs by his contemporaries, including Edward Steichen and Paul Strand.

Among Stieglitz’s works to be featured in this exhibition are portraits, views of New York City from the beginning and end of his career, and the 1920s cloud studies he titled Equivalents, through which he sought to arouse in the viewer the emotional equivalent of his own state of mind at the time he made the photograph, and to show that the content of a photograph was different from its subject.

The exhibition will also include numerous photographs from Stieglitz’s extraordinary composite portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), part of a group of works selected for the Museum’s collection by O’Keeffe herself. Stieglitz made more than 330 images of O’Keeffe between 1917 and 1937 – of her face, torso, hands, or feet alone, clothed and nude, intimate and heroic, introspective and assertive. Through these photographs Stieglitz revealed O’Keeffe’s strengths and vulnerabilities, and almost single-handedly defined her public persona for generations to come.

Stieglitz’s protégé and gallery collaborator, Edward Steichen (1879-1973), was the most talented exemplar of the Photo-Secession, the loosely-knit group of artists founded by Stieglitz in 1902, seceding, in his words, “from the accepted idea of what constitutes a photograph,” but also from the camera clubs and other institutions dominated by a more retrograde establishment. In works such as The Pond – Moonrise (1904), made using a painstaking technique of multiple printing, Steichen rivalled the scale, colour, and individuality of painting.

Steichen’s three large variant prints of The Flatiron (1904) are prime examples of the conscious effort of Photo-Secession photographers to assert the artistic potential of their medium. Steichen achieved coloristic effects reminiscent of Whistler’s Nocturne paintings by brushing layers of pigment suspended in light-sensitive gum solution onto a platinum photograph. Although he used only one negative to create all three photographs, the variable colouring enabled him to create three significantly different images that convey the chromatic progression of twilight. The Metropolitan’s three prints, all donated by Stieglitz in 1933, are the only exhibition prints of Steichen’s iconic image.

In 1908 Steichen photographed the plaster of Rodin’s sculpture of Honoré de Balzac in the open air, by the light of the moon, making several exposures as long as an hour each. In Balzac, The Silhouette – 4 A.M., the moonlight has transformed the plaster into a monumental phantom rising above the brooding nocturnal landscape. Steichen recalled that when he presented his finished prints to Rodin, the elated sculptor exclaimed, “You will make the world understand my Balzac through your pictures.”

Among the unique early-20th-century works by Stieglitz and Steichen in the Museum’s collection are Autochromes, an early process of colour photography that became commercially available in 1907. Because of the delicate and light-sensitive nature of these glass transparencies, five original Autochromes by Stieglitz and Steichen will be displayed for one week only, January 25-30, 2011. During the other weeks of the exhibition, facsimiles of these Autochromes will be on view.

Stieglitz’s and Steichen’s younger contemporary, Paul Strand (1890-1976), pioneered a shift from the soft-focus aesthetic and painterly prints of the Photo-Secession to the straight approach and graphic power of an emerging modernism. Strand was introduced to Stieglitz as a high-schooler by his camera club advisor, Lewis Hine, the social reformer and photographer. He quickly became a regular visitor to “291,” where he was exposed to the latest trends in European art through groundbreaking exhibitions of works by Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, and Brancusi.

Strand incorporated the new language of geometric abstraction into his interest in photographing street life and machine culture. His photographs from 1915-1917 treated three principal themes: movement in the city, abstractions, and street portraits. Stieglitz, whose interest in photography had waned as he grew more interested in avant-garde art, saw in Strand’s work a new approach to photography. He showed Strand’s groundbreaking photographs at 291 and devoted the entire final double issue of Camera Work (1917) to this young photographer’s work, marking a pivotal moment in the course of photography.

In From the El (1915), Strand juxtaposed the ironwork and shadows of the elevated train with the tiny form of a lone pedestrian. In 1916, he experimented with radical camera angles and photographing at close range. Among the astonishingly modern photographs he made that summer is Abstraction, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, one of the first photographic abstractions to be made intentionally. When Stieglitz published a variant of this image in Camera Work, he praised Strand’s results as “the direct expression of today.”

In the same year, Strand made a series of candid street portraits with a hand-held camera fitted with a special lens that allowed him to point the camera in one direction while taking the photograph at a 90-degree angle. Blind, his seminal image of a street peddler, was published in Camera Work and immediately became an icon of the new American photography, which integrated the humanistic concerns of social documentation with the boldly simplified forms of Modernism. As is true for most of the large platinum prints by Strand in the exhibition, the Metropolitan’s Blind, a gift of Stieglitz, is the only exhibition print of this image from the period.

Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand is organised by Malcolm Daniel, Curator in Charge of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Photographs, assisted by Russell Lord, Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of Photographs.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'The City of Ambitions' 1910

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The City of Ambitions
1910, printed 1910-1913
Photogravure
33.8 x 26.0cm (13 5/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

This photograph belongs to a series of dynamic images Stieglitz made of New York of 1910. It appeared in the October 1911 issue of Camera Work along with eight other examples of his lyrical urban modernism – a contemporary vision certainly not lost on Coburn, Struss, and Strand.

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'Old and New New York' 1910, printed in or before 1913

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Old and New New York
1910, printed in or before 1913
Photogravure
33.2 x 25.5cm (13 1/16 x 10 1/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) 'From the El' 1915

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
From the El
1915
Platinum print
33.6 x 25.9cm (13 1/4 x 10 3/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

Paul Strand was introduced to Alfred Stieglitz by his teacher Lewis Hine, and quickly became part of the coterie of painters and photographers that gathered at Stieglitz’s gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue. There he was exposed to the latest trends in European vanguard art through groundbreaking exhibitions of Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, and Brancusi. Strand incorporated their abstracting compositional techniques into his work, marrying the new language of geometric surface design to his interest in street life and machine culture.

Strand’s vision of the city during these years often focuses on the problematic exchange between the sweep and rigor of the urban grid with the human lives that inhabit and pass through it. From the El is a good example of this dialectical approach, with the graphic power of the ironwork and street shadows punctuated by the tiny, lone pedestrian at the upper right. Strand addresses the effects of the new urban condition obliquely here, embedding a subtle political statement within the formal structure of the image.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'From the Back Window – 291' 1915

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
From the Back Window – 291
1915
Platinum print
25.1 x 20.2cm (9 7/8 x 7 15/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

At the turn of the century, Stieglitz’s duties as gallery owner, publisher, editor, and promoter left him little time to photograph. When the mood struck him, however, which began to happen with some frequency about 1915, he did not look far afield but photographed his colleagues at the gallery and the view from his window with a modernist rigor exceeded only by Strand.

 

Paul Strand (American 1890-1976) 'Blind woman, New York' 1916

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Blind
1916
Platinum print
34 x 25.7cm (13 3/8 x 10 1/8 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'Hodge Kirnon' 1917

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Hodge Kirnon
1917
Palladium print
24.6 x 19.9cm (9 11/16 x 7 13/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

One of the least well known and most beautiful of Stieglitz’s portraits, this photograph depicts Hodge Kirnon, a man Stieglitz saw in passing every day. When preparing to close his historic gallery “291” in 1917 as a result of World War I, Stieglitz assessed his work and life and saw that Kirnon – who operated the elevator that transported the gallery’s visitors, its critics, and its provocative modern art – had been a true fellow passenger on the momentous trip.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'Georgia O'Keeffe – Hands' 1917

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe – Hands
1917
Platinum print
22.6 x 16.8cm (8 7/8 x 6 5/8 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of Georgia O’Keeffe, through the generosity of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation and Jennifer and Joseph Duke, 1997

 

Georgia O’Keeffe – Hands is one of the images that Stieglitz made during his first portrait session with O’Keeffe, in 1917, when she traveled by train to New York to see her second show of drawings and watercolours at 291. “A few weeks after I returned to Texas, photographs of me came,” she recalled. “In my excitement at such pictures of myself I took them to school and held them up for my class to see. They were surprised and astonished too. Nothing like that had come into our world before.” The notion that an expressive portrait might be made without including the sitter’s face was indeed novel.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Exhibition Overview

This exhibition features three giants of photography – Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), Edward Steichen (American, b. Luxembourg, 1879-1973), and Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) – whose works are among the Metropolitan’s greatest photographic treasures. The diverse and groundbreaking work of these artists will be revealed through a presentation of approximately 115 photographs, drawn entirely from the collection.

Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer of supreme accomplishment as well as a forceful and influential advocate for photography and modern art through his gallery “291” and his sumptuous journal Camera Work, laid the foundation of the Met’s collection. He donated twenty-two of his own works in 1928 – the first photographs to be acquired by the Museum as works of art – and more than six hundred by other photographers, including Steichen and Strand, in later decades. Featured in the exhibition will be portraits, city views, and cloud studies by Stieglitz, as well as numerous images from his composite portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887-1986), part of a group selected for the collection by O’Keeffe herself.

Stieglitz’s protégé and gallery collaborator Edward Steichen was the most talented exemplar of Photo-Secessionist ideas, with works such as his three large variant prints of The Flatiron and his moonlit photographs of Rodin’s Balzac purposely rivaling the scale, color, and individuality of painting. By contrast, the final issue of Camera Work (1917) was devoted to the young Paul Strand, whose photographs from 1915-1917 treated three principal themes – movement in the city, abstractions, and street portraits – and pioneered a shift from the soft-focus Pictorialist aesthetic to the straight approach and graphic power of an emerging modernism.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946). 'Georgia O'Keeffe - Neck' 1921

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe – Neck
1921
Palladium print
23.6 x 19.2cm (9 5/16 x 7 9/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of Georgia O’Keeffe, through the generosity of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation and Jennifer and Joseph Duke, 1997

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'Dancing Trees' 1922

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Dancing Trees
1922
Palladium print
24.2 x 19.3cm (9 1/2 x 7 5/8 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of David A. Schulte, 1928

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'Spiritual America' 1923

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Spiritual America
1923
Gelatin silver print
11.6 x 9.2cm (4 9/16 x 3 5/8 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949

 

In the decade leading up to the Great Depression, American modernism was a highly contested concept. Stieglitz, perhaps justifiably, considered himself one of the few qualified to dictate its course, having surrounded himself with a group of like-minded and devoted artists, critics, and writers whom he directed in an almost shamanistic fashion. Spirituality loomed large in his vision of American identity, but he was disheartened and offended with what he viewed as a pent-up, materialist, and culturally bankrupt American way. In a rare attempt at ironic commentary, Stieglitz produced this picture of a harnessed, castrated horse – a pure representation of eradicated sexual prowess and restrained muscular energy – and labelled it Spiritual America. In effect, he suggested that America was lacking in spirit by reinterpreting the horse, a traditional American symbol of unstoppable force, as a trussed-up pattern of slick geometry.

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

 

Edward J. Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973) 'Gloria Swanson' 1924, printed 1960s

 

Edward J. Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973)
Gloria Swanson
1924, printed 1960s
Gelatin silver print
24.0 x 19.1cm (9 7/16 x 7 1/2 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of Grace M. Mayer, 1989

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) 'Wild Iris, Maine' 1927-28

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Wild Iris, Maine
1927-1928
Gelatin silver print
24.8 x 19.8cm (9 3/4 x 7 13/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1955
Courtesy Aperture Foundation, Inc., Paul Strand Archive

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946) 'Looking Northwest from the Shelton, New York' 1932

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Looking Northwest from the Shelton, New York
1932
Gelatin silver print
24.2 x 19.2cm (9 1/2 x 7 9/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ford Motor Company Collection
Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987

 

Stieglitz recorded the construction of the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan from the windows of his gallery and of his nearby apartment in the Shelton Towers. His photographs seem not to celebrate the astonishing growth of new buildings but rather almost geological permanence and stability: “Crammed on the narrow island the million-windowed buildings will jut glittering, pyramid on pyramid…,” as John Dos Passos wrote.

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) 'Georgia O'Keeffe – Hand and Wheel' 1933

 

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Georgia O’Keeffe – Hand and Wheel
1933
Gelatin silver print
24.1 x 19.5cm (9 1/2 x 7 11/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of Georgia O’Keeffe, through the generosity of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation and Jennifer and Joseph Duke, 1997

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) 'Cristo - Oaxaca' 1933, printed 1940

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Cristo – Oaxaca
1933, printed 1940
Photogravure
25.4 x 20.2cm (10 x 7 15/16 in.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1940

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976) 'Church, Coapiaxtla' 1933, printed 1940

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Coapiaxtla, Church
1933, printed 1940
Photogravure
16.2 x 12.7cm (6 3/8 x 5 in.)
David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1940

 

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
Information: 212-535-7710

Opening hours:
Sunday – Tuesday and Thursday: 10am – 5pm
Friday and Saturday: 10am – 9pm
Closed Wednesday

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Exhibition: ‘William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008’ at The Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibition dates: 27th February – 23rd May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled (Memphis, Tennessee)' 1971 from the exhibition 'William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008' at The Art Institute of Chicago, February - May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled (Memphis, Tennessee)
1971
from 14 Pictures, 1974
Dye transfer print
15 7/8 x 19 15/16 in (40.3 x 50.6cm)
Collection of Adam Bartos
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

 

THE classic William Eggleston, the one and only. Feel the heat of sun on body. Look at the construction of the image plane, all angles and fractures. The slight movement of the woman’s hand as she sits on a cracked yellow wall. The distance between her body and the metal pole with wrapped chain and padlock, that ice/fire tension as Minor White would say. Man with gun vs melancholy monochromatic self portrait, the reverie of the lone thinker. Colour and light as emotional sounding board, “colour as a means of discovery and expression, and as a way to highlight aspects of life hidden in plain sight.” This is what Eggleston points his democratic camera at – life hidden in plain sight, revealed in all its intricacies, in all its mundanity and glory.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to Chai Lee and the Art Institute of Chicago for allowing to me reproduce the photographs in this posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' 1970 from the exhibition 'William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008' at The Art Institute of Chicago, February - May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
1970
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchased with funds from the Photography Committee
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' 1975 from the exhibition 'William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008' at The Art Institute of Chicago, February - May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
1975
Dye transfer print
16 x 20 in (40.6 x 50.8cm)
Cheim & Read, New York
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' c. 1971-1973 from the exhibition 'William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008' at The Art Institute of Chicago, February - May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
c. 1971-1973
from Troubled Waters, 1980
Dye transfer print
15 7/8 x 19 15/16 in (40.3 x 50.6cm)
Collection Marcia Dunn and Jonathan Sobel
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' Nd from the exhibition 'William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008' at The Art Institute of Chicago, February - May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
Nd
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
12 x 17 3/4 inches (30.5 x 45.1cm)
Private collection
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' Nd from the exhibition 'William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008' at The Art Institute of Chicago, February - May, 2010

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
Nd
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
12 x 17 3/4 in (30.5 x 45.1cm)
Private collection
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

 

The unconventional beauty and artistry of works by photographer William Eggleston will be showcased in a major exhibition opening at the Art Institute of Chicago this winter. William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 – on view from February 27 through May 23, 2010, in the Modern Wing’s Abbott Galleries (G182, G184) and Carolyn S. and Matthew Bucksbaum Gallery (G188) – is the most comprehensive retrospective to date of the Memphis-based contemporary photographer. The exhibition brings together more than 150 extraordinary images of familiar, everyday subjects with lesser-known, early black-and-white prints and provocative video recordings, all produced over a five-decade period.

Born in 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised on his family’s cotton plantation in Mississippi, William Eggleston held a casual interest in photography until 1959, when he came across photo books by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans. Among his earliest pictures, made during stints at universities in Tennessee and Mississippi, were black-and-white scenes found in his native South, as well as portraits of friends and family members.

By the 1960s and early 1970s he had begun experimenting with colour film, and he eventually produced rich, vivid prints through the dye transfer process – prints that are created through the alignment of three separate matrices (cyan, magenta, and yellow) generated from three separate negatives (red, green, and blue filters). The resulting prints are known for the vividness and permanence of their colours. Hence, Eggleston is often credited for single-handedly ushering in the era of colour art photography.

Eager to show his work to a broader audience, Eggleston traveled to New York with a suitcase of slides and prints to meet with Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) curator John Szarkowski. This visit eventually yielded a controversial but revolutionary exhibition in 1976 – MoMA’s first solo show to feature colour photographs – and a classic accompanying book, William Eggleston’s Guide. At this point in his career, Eggleston had already distinguished himself by treating colour as a means of discovery and expression, and as a way to highlight aspects of life hidden in plain sight.

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 demonstrates Eggleston’s “democratic” approach to his photographic subjects in both colour and black-and-white. Everything that happens in front of the camera is worthy of becoming a picture for the artist – no matter how seemingly circumstantial or trivial. Eggleston finds his motifs in everyday life, resulting in telling portrayals of American culture. His iconic images such as Elvis’s Graceland, a supermarket clerk corralling grocery carts in the afternoon sunlight, and a freezer stuffed with food proves that the photographer points his “democratic camera” at everything. Eggleston’s quiet, thoughtful pictures have profoundly impacted subsequent generations of photographers, filmmakers, and scholars.

The exhibition also includes Eggleston’s cult video work, Stranded in Canton. In the 1960s, Eggleston used film to document Fred McDowell, a well-known Delta blues musician, but ultimately abandoned the film project. Eggleston later acquired a video camera and began using video to shoot in bars and in people’s homes; sometimes he shot monologues friends delivered for his video camera, most often at night. The result, Stranded in Canton, recently restored and re-edited, is a portrait of a woozy subculture that adds dimension and texture to the world of Eggleston’s colour photographs.

Internationally acclaimed, Eggleston has spent the past four decades photographing around the world, responding intuitively to fleeting configurations of cultural signs and specific expressions of local colour. By not censoring, rarely editing, and always photographing even the seemingly banal, Eggleston convinces us completely of the idea of the democratic camera.

Press release from the Art Institute of Chicago website [Online] Cited 15/05/2010 no longer available online

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' Nd

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
Nd
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
17 3/4 x 12 in. (45.1 x 30.5cm)
Private collection.
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled (Memphis Tennessee)' 1965

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled (Memphis Tennessee)
1965
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
17 ¾ x 12 inches (45.1 x 30.5cm)
Private collection.
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Memphis' c. 1969-1971

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Memphis
c. 1969-1971
from William Eggleston’s Guide, 1976
Dye transfer print
24 x 20 in (61 x 50.8cm)
Collection of John Cheim
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Morton, Mississippi' c. 1969-1970

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Morton, Mississippi
c. 1969-1970
from William Eggleston’s Guide 1976
Dye transfer print
13 3/8 x 8 11/16 in (34 x 22cm)
Cheim & Read, New York
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Huntsville, Alabama' 1971

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Huntsville, Alabama
1971
from William Eggleston’s Guide 1976
Dye transfer print
20 x 15 7/8 in (50.8 x 40.3cm)
University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses, Oxford
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'Untitled' Nd from 'Los Alamos, 1965-1974'

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled
Nd
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
17 3/4 x 12 in (45.1 x 30.5cm)
Private collection
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939) 'En Route to New Orleans' 1971-1974

 

William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
En Route to New Orleans
1971-1974
from Los Alamos, 1965-1974 (published 2003)
Dye transfer print
17 3/4 x 12 in. (45.1 x 30.5cm)
Private collection
© Eggleston Artistic Trust, courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

 

 

Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60603-6404
Phone: (312) 443-3600

Opening hours:
Friday – Monday 11am – 5pm
Thursday 11am – 8pm
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

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Exhibition: ‘I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq’ by David Levinthal at Stellan Holm Gallery, New York

Exhibition dates: 19th December, 2009 – 13th February, 2010

 

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

Marcus

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'IED' 2008 from the exhibition 'I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq' by David Levinthal at Stellan Holm Gallery, New York, December 2009 - February 2010

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series IED
2008
Archival Pigment Print on Polyester Film

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'IED' 2008 from the exhibition 'I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq' by David Levinthal at Stellan Holm Gallery, New York, December 2009 - February 2010

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series IED
2008
Archival Pigment Print on Polyester Film

 

 

Stellan Holm Gallery is presenting I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq, an exhibition of photographs by David Levinthal. The exhibition runs through February 13, 2010. This is the first solo exhibition of works by David Levinthal on view at Stellan Holm Gallery.

I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq features eighteen colour photographs by renowned photographer, David Levinthal, which seek to examine the way in which our society looks at war. The idea for this series was conceived when Levinthal recognised a flood of figurines and models available to the American consumer, depicting the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through the use of these miniature soldiers, civilians and armoured vehicles, Levinthal constructs extremely realistic dioramas that recreate the horrors of contemporary warfare. However, these photographs do not simply recreate scenes from a foreign war. Instead they bring a new perspective to the discourse about war, how it is broadcast in real time and how it relates to American society as a whole. Without interjecting his own prejudgments, David Levinthal asks the viewer to reconsider their own perceptions of reality.

Released by powerHouse Books, the publication, I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq, compiles the entirety of Mr. Levinthal’s series of photographs. The book features seventy colour photographs along with an introduction by the artist. It is accompanied by a series of writings culled by David Stanford, editor of The Sandbox, an online military blog that posts writings from troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This ‘boots-on-the-ground’ testimony adds a powerful voice to the compelling and harrowing photographs constructed by Levinthal.

Born in 1949 in San Francisco, CA, David Levinthal has been exploring and confronting various social issues through the playful use of toy figurines since 1972. He has released numerous publications including, Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43, Bad Barbie, and Blackface. He was the recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1995 and the National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Artists Fellowship in 1990-1991. His works are featured in numerous, notable public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Text from the Stellan Holm Gallery website [Online] Cited 16/01/2010 no longer available online

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'IED' 2008 from the exhibition 'I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq' by David Levinthal at Stellan Holm Gallery, New York, December 2009 - February 2010

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series IED
2008
Archival Pigment Print on Polyester Film

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'IED' 2008

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series IED
2008
Archival Pigment Print on Polyester Film

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'IED' 2008

 

David Levinthal (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series IED
2008
Archival Pigment Print on Polyester Film

 

 

Stellan Holm Gallery

This gallery has now closed.

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Exhibition: ‘Ball Parks: Jim Dow’s Photographs of Baseball Stadiums’ at The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Exhibition dates: 4th July – 27th September, 2009

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Exhibition Stadium' 1982 from the exhibition 'Ball Parks: Jim Dow's Photographs of Baseball Stadiums' at The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, July - Sept, 2009

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942)
Exhibition Stadium
1982
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Gift of Benjamin Greenberg, Ottawa, 1988 and 1989

 

 

These feel like religious reliquaries, a triptych form which arises from early Christian art but here a paean to the monumentalisation of sport, architecture, human heroics and grandiosity.

Apologies that the blog is not wide enough to display these panoramic images at a decent size but you can click on the photographs to see a larger version of the image. I have also displayed each 8″ x 10″ negative sequentially.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Exhibition Stadium' 1982 (detail)

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Exhibition Stadium' 1982

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Exhibition Stadium' 1982

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942)
Exhibition Stadium (individual frames)
1982
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Gift of Benjamin Greenberg, Ottawa, 1988 and 1989

 

 

This installation from the National Gallery’s Collection of Photographs comprises 26 colour panoramic views of empty baseball stadiums across North America, from Exhibition Stadium, the home of the Toronto Blue Jays, and Montréal’s Olympic Stadium to the Houston Astro’s Astrodome. Taken in 1982, Jim Dow, a respected American photographer as well as a sports enthusiast, imparts through these images both a passion for the monumentality of the architecture and its abstract geometry and his love of baseball. The emptiness of the stadiums simultaneously evokes memory and a sense of anticipation.

Jim Dow’s interest in those places where people enact their everyday rituals, from the barbershop to the baseball park, has guided the path of his photographic career. Dow is concerned with capturing “human ingenuity and spirit” in endangered regional traditions – a barbershop with a heavy patina of town life covering the walls, the opulent time capsule of an old private New York club, the densely packed display of smoking pipes in an English tobacconist shop – all artefacts of a vanishing era.

Dow earned a B.F.A. and a M.F.A. in graphic design and photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1965 and 1968 respectively. An early influence was Walker Evans’s seminal book American Photographs (1938). Dow recalls the appeal of Evans’s “razor sharp, infinitely detailed, small images of town architecture and people. What stood out was a palpable feeling of loss … pictures that seemingly read like paragraphs, even chapters in one long, complex, rich narrative.” Soon after graduate school Dow had the opportunity to work with Evans. He was hired to print his mentor’s photographs for a 1972 Museum of Modern Art retrospective.

Dow has taught photography at Harvard, Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and his work has been widely exhibited. Among his series is Corner Shops of Britain (1995), which features facades of small family-run businesses: vitrine-like shop windows showcase goods from candy jars to jellied eels. Another series, Time Passing (1984-2004), captures North Dakota “folk art” such as rural road signage, hand-painted billboards, and ornate gravestones.

Dow first gained attention for his panoramic triptychs of baseball stadiums, a project that began with an image he made of Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia in 1980. Using an 8 x 10″ camera, he has documented more than two hundred major and minor league parks in the United States and Canada.”

Text from Artdaily.org website [Online] Cited 17/04/2019

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'The Kingdome. Seattle Mariners' 1982 from the exhibition 'Ball Parks: Jim Dow's Photographs of Baseball Stadiums' at The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, July - Sept, 2009

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942)
The Kingdome. Seattle Mariners
1982
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Gift of Benjamin Greenberg, Ottawa, 1988 and 1989

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'The Kingdome. Seattle Mariners' 1982 (detail)

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'The Kingdome. Seattle Mariners' 1982

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'The Kingdome. Seattle Mariners' 1982 (detail)

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942)
The Kingdome. Seattle Mariners (individual frames)
1982
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Gift of Benjamin Greenberg, Ottawa, 1988 and 1989

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Olympic Stadium, Montreal' 1982

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942)
Olympic Stadium, Montreal
1982
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Gift of Benjamin Greenberg, Ottawa, 1988 and 1989

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Olympic Stadium, Montreal' 1982 (detail)

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Olympic Stadium, Montreal' 1982 (detail)

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942) 'Olympic Stadium, Montreal' 1982 (detail)

 

Jim Dow (American, b. 1942)
Olympic Stadium, Montreal (individual frames)
1982
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Gift of Benjamin Greenberg, Ottawa, 1988 and 1989

 

 

National Gallery of Canada
380 Sussex Drive
P.O. Box 427, Station A
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada 
K1N 9N4

Opening hours:
Daily 9.30am – 5pm

National Gallery of Canada website

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Review: ‘Apocrypha’ photographs by Julie Davis and Alex Rizkalla at Place Gallery, Richmond

Exhibition dates: 17th June – 11th July 2009

 

Apocrypha (from the Greek word ἀπόκρυφα, meaning “those having been hidden away”) are texts of uncertain authenticity, or writings where the authorship is questioned.

Definition from the Wikipedia website

 

Julie Davis (Australian, b. 1959) and Alex Rizkalla (Australian, b. 1950) 'Apocrypha #1' (left) and 'Apocrypha #4' (right) 2008

 

Julie Davis (Australian, b. 1959) and Alex Rizkalla (Australian, b. 1950)
Apocrypha #1 (left) and Apocrypha #4 (right)
2008

 

 

“Intuitively we know the definition of the output from this process lies hidden within each object, seemingly carved into the underside of their skin, although we cannot see it. But actually it is not carved, it is the three-dimensional tracing of the original. The original becomes a throw-away. It is obsolete. The point of origin lies no longer within an object but at the heart of the creative impulse.”


Vanessa Mooney

 

 

Apocrypha is an interesting, if slight, exhibition of eleven photographs by Julie Davis and Alex Rizkalla at Place Gallery in Richmond. Conceptually the work is resolved if not pushed to any great depth, the small photographs of sarcophagi like casements and moulds addressing issues surrounding the absence / presence of the original object and the subsequent loss of identity. In their masking, the objects photographed hide an inner identity that has gone missing; the headless figures, like faceless mummies, protect something that has existed since early man – the inner spiritual machinations of belief – that are embedded within the existential nature of our being. Identity has been rubbed out and spirit is splitting apart the moulds trying to escape the confines of mortality, only held in check by the wooden pegs and ropes.

Like the sutures of the human skull, the marks on the casements (see below right image) try to align form across space and time but these objects are grounded in a contextless backgrounds, seemingly floating free of earthly constraints. Here we have a double tracing – that of the tracing of the original object that has been thrown away (see Vanessa Mooney quotation above) and the tracing of the indexicality of the object by the photograph – the re-presentation of an original that no longer exists. There is a double loss through this re-retracing that fits perfectly with the title Apocrypha – as the photographs become texts of uncertain authenticity.

Where the exhibition is less successful is in the physical presence of the photographs and their aesthetic qualities. While Vanessa Mooney asserts that the photographs are “meticulous in their detail and exact in their depth and texture” this assertion is untrue. From a technical point of view the photographs are soft in focus and lack depth of field. The ropes are fuzzy and the lack of depth of field in the focus plane from front to back adds to a lack of presence that the photographs needed to counterbalance the conceptual idea of apocrypha. I am also unsure about the scale of the photographs – there seems something in-between about the size of the images, neither here nor there. Aesthetically they needed either more presence (through being bigger), or more intensity through a jewel like nature in being smaller, again to counterbalance the conceptual themes. Finally, being surrounded by these eleven photographs in the gallery gives you the feeling of a ‘one shot’ idea that needed further investigation and refinement, an idea that needed to be pushed further. While the actual ideas themselves are interesting the work itself is too simple, too slight to hold the attention and reveal layers of meaning over time.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to Place Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting.

 

 

Julie Davis (Australian, b. 1959) and Alex Rizkalla (Australian, b. 1950) 'Apocrypha #5' (left) and 'Apocrypha #7' (right) 2008

 

Julie Davis (Australian, b. 1959) and Alex Rizkalla (Australian, b. 1950)
Apocrypha #5 (left) and Apocrypha #7 (right)
2008

 

 

The Father, The Son And Apocrypha

We all have faith that we must lodge somewhere: you; the microscope, me; the earth, and the artist? There are two stories present. The first is Apocrypha, a series of works by Davies and Rizkalla and the second is something you cannot see but will soon know.

Davies and Rizkalla present to us Apocrypha; a series of photographs that are meticulous in their detail and exact in their depth and texture. It is an evocative title and encapsulates the resonance of the objects. What we can see is clear – plaster moulds used by someone, somewhere for casting objects. The clarity of the details of rope, wedges of wood and the depth of the seam tell us of the real working nature of them. The inversion here from background process to foreground subject matter is not for irony’s sake but to evoke the simultaneous banality and sacredness of the transformative creative process. It is documented honestly before the viewer, and yet, the mystery remains. Intuitively we know the definition of the output from this process lies hidden within each object, seemingly carved into the underside of their skin, although we cannot see it. But actually it is not carved, it is the three-dimensional tracing of the original. The original becomes a throw-away. It is obsolete. The point of origin lies no longer within an object but at the heart of the creative impulse.

Tony Scalzo, my father-in-law, was drawn to this process. While the creation of a religious icon amused his communist leanings the irresistible pull of the transformation from dust and water to artefact must have, I feel, fulfilled a greater need to live through making. Countless times he would present to us his recent army of saints or holy persons (Padre Pio was a boom time) to be sold through his community, and would scoff and laugh at how he could make an object that to others was an icon. He would point to the shed, the latex, the plaster dust as if to dispel the mystery, and yet the mystery remained.

Perhaps the final mystery is the process, the collaboration that has come about since Tony passed away and his son Stefano came into possession of the simple and unusual collection. Stefano like his father is drawn to the creative process. So innately aware of the artist, his father, he approached Julie and Alex with these as gifts that are, in a way, not his to give. As a custodian might he passed on the objects and communicated his intuitive knowledge of their meaning. One plus one equals three. The result, Apocrypha, is like a window that was obscured and now has been opened. We can see with clarity what was unseen, but known, before. Apocrypha silently demonstrates the entwining of faith and mystery in the creative life of all.”

Vanessa Mooney

Text from the Place Gallery website [Online] Cited 09/03/2019. No longer available online

 

Julie Davis (Australian, b 1959) and Alex Rizkalla (Australian, b. 1950) 'Apocrypha #8' (left) and 'Apocrypha #9' (right) 2008

 

Julie Davis (Australian, b 1959) and Alex Rizkalla (Australian, b. 1950)
Apocrypha #8 (left) and Apocrypha #9 (right)
2008

 

 

Place Gallery
20, Tennyson Street, Richmond

Openng hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 11.00am – 5.00pm
Closed Sundays

Place Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Fourteen Places to Eat: A Narrative Photographing Rural Culture in the Midwest’ by photographer Kay Westhues at the Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, Indiana

Exhibition dates: 31st May – 19th July, 2009

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'CSX railroad building, Walkerton' 2005

 

Kay Westhues (American)
CSX railroad building, Walkerton
2005

 

 

I really like this work. An insightful eye, sensitive, tapped into the community that the artist is documenting. Attuned to its inflections and incongruities, the isolation and loneliness of a particular culture in time and place. There are further strong photographs from the series on the Kay Westhues website. It’s well worth your time looking through these excellent photographs. And observing the wonderful light!

There is an interview with Kay Westhues on the Daily Yonder website.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


All photographs © Kay Westhues with permission and thanks, used under Creative Commons 2.5 License with proper attribution. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Man with patriotic cast, Original Famous Fish of Stroh' 2005

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Man with patriotic cast, Original Famous Fish of Stroh
2005

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Knox laundromat' 2005

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Knox laundromat
2005

 

 

The Snite Museum of Art announces the opening of the exhibition: Fourteen Places to Eat: a Narrative: Photographing Rural Culture in the Midwest, opening on Sunday, May 31,2009.

Kay Westhues is a photographer who is interested in documenting the ways in which rural tradition and history are interpreted and transformed in the present day. Kay shares her intention for this series of work:

“For the past five years I have been working on a series of photographs depicting rural culture in Indiana and the Midwest. This project was inspired by my memories of growing up on a farm in Walkerton, Indiana, and observing first hand the shifting cultural identity that has occurred over time and through changing economic development. I moved back to Walkerton in order to help care for my ageing parents in 2001.

These photos mirror my personal history, but I am also capturing a people’s history grounded in a sense of place. My intention is to celebrate rural life, without idealising it.

The overall theme since the project’s inception is the effect of the demise of local economies that have historically sustained rural communities. Many of my images contain the remains of an earlier time, when locally owned stores and family farms were the norm. Today chain stores and agribusiness are prevalent in rural communities. These communities are struggling to thrive in the global economy, and my images reflect that reality.

Most recently I have focused on the complex relationship between farmers and domesticated animals. I make many of my images at Animal Swap Meets and sale barns, places where animals are bought and sold. Family farms are quickly being replaced by large-scale food production, and these events still draw smaller farmers and the local people who support them.”

Why fourteen places to eat?

“One of my biggest complaints after moving to Walkerton was that there were not enough places to eat out. Or, rather, practically no places to eat out. So I was happy when news arrived that a new restaurant was opening there. Imagine my surprise when I read a letter to the editor in the local paper against the new restaurant. The letter stated we already had enough places to eat in this town. The writer counted a total of fourteen places to eat, which included four restaurants, three gas stations, four bars, a truck stop, a convenience mart, and a bowling alley.”

Ms. Westhues studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and Indiana University, Bloomington. She has a BS degree in Photography and Ethnocentrism from the Indiana University Individualised Major Program (1994), and an MS in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University (1998). She currently lives in Elkhart, Indiana, and is completing a five-year project photographing rural culture in the Midwest. This series is a visual exploration of the ways rural identity is defined in contemporary society.

Press release from the Snite Museum of Art Cited 20/06/2009. No longer available online

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Chicken bingo, Francesville Fall Festival' 2005

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Chicken bingo, Francesville Fall Festival
2005

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Patriotic hammers ($3.00)' 2005

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Patriotic hammers ($3.00)
2005

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Parked trailer, Ligonier' 2006

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Parked trailer, Ligonier
2006

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Lunch at the Crockpot, Walkerton (The Young and the Restless)' 2007

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Lunch at the Crockpot, Walkerton (The Young and the Restless)
2007

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Momence Speed Wash, Momence IL' 2007

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Momence Speed Wash, Momence IL
2007

 

Kay Westhues (American) 'Mary Ann Rubio, Family Cafe, Knox' 2007

 

Kay Westhues (American)
Mary Ann Rubio, Family Cafe, Knox
2007

 

 

The Snite Museum of Art
at University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday 10.00am – 5pm
Saturday 12.00 – 5.00pm
Closed Sundays and Mondays

The Snite Museum of Art website

Kay Westhues website

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Exhibition: Scott McFarland photographs at Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 23rd May – 3rd July, 2009

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Fallen Oak Tree' 2008

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Fallen Oak Tree
2008
From the series Hampstead
Inkjet print
27 x 24 inches (68.6 x 61cm)
Edition of 5

 

 

Variations on a theme

Whether McFarland’s photographs are “straight” or composites, there always seems to an unnerving feel to them, a formal frontality that empowers the viewer into trying to unlock the photographs secret, like an enigmatic puzzle. Everything is presented front on, square to the camera, no oblique angles, relying in the straight photographs on the scale of the accumulated blocks of information, and in the composites, in the very unlikely, even theatrical, staging of the people within the mise en scène.

These are very cinematic photographs, some, literally, with their panoramic aesthetic, others built by assembling their scudding skies and stiff, neatly placed people. Too neatly placed in my opinion but that’s McFarland’s hook, his aesthetic cough which prompts the viewer to question the veracity of the image, its link to the photographs indexical reality. His multiple exposures push the boundaries of truth or dare, hyperreal solutions to a disengaged world. Personally, I prefer his straight photographs which are built on a fabulous eye, a masterful understanding of pictorial space (monumental elements held in balance) and wonderful previsualisation. You don’t need anything more.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'The Admiral's House as seen from the Upper Garden at Fenton House' 2006

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
The Admiral’s House as seen from the Upper Garden at Fenton House
2006
From the series Hampstead
Inkjet print
Edition of 5

 

 

“Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Canadian artist Scott McFarland. This exhibition will feature new photographs including 3 large panorama works, smaller works from the “Hampstead” series, and introduce the new “Niagara” series.

Scott McFarland’s photography reconsiders the traditional concept of a photograph as the depiction of a single captured moment in time. Through digital means he is able to manipulate composition, colour, light, space, shape, and form. McFarland’s photographs combine multiple negatives to represent simultaneous temporalities and interweave selected elements into a cohesive whole. Several different moments are packed into what appears to be one densely constructed instant. The photographs are meticulously crafted illusions created within the formal language of documentary photography.

McFarland’s consideration of photography and the built picture was brought about by the artist’s own understanding of the artificial “nature” found in built environments such as gardens and zoos. Taking the relationship of the constructed space/constructed image one step further, McFarland has photographed a modernist architectural landmark: the Berthold Lubetkin designed penguin pool at the London zoo. Through two very distinct works, McFarland investigates the elliptical structure of the famous penguin pool vis-à-vis the elliptical / arcing motion of his camera rotating on a tripod. One photograph is an objective colour rendering where the camera has been left level while rotating; the other is a larger black and white version where the camera arcs along a non-level plane distorting and altering the curve of the structure from right to left.

The new square format photographs from McFarland’s “Niagara” series have a rough unfinished quality unlike any photographs he has taken to date. These softer focus images with odd shifts in light and glare are location studies for the large panorama A Horse Drawn Hearse, Queens Royal Tours, 174 Anne, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario (2009, below). This work depicts an old carriage business and its surroundings during the dead of Canadian winter. In this visually captivating work, a black funeral carriage contrasts against the white snow. The acreage, surrounded by newer suburban homes, evokes the question of how long can this structure resist the modern urban pressures it faces. These straight photographs presented alongside his precise digitally mastered compositions illustrate how the photographic process and the history of art and photography have always informed McFarland’s work.

“Over the last decade, Scott McFarland has produced bodies of work that engage with different aspects of photography … McFarland’s approach is both descriptive and metaphoric … The images, rich in cultural significance, express the complementary workings of conceptual and aesthetic factors all the while holding various characteristics of art and photography in ambiguous relation.”

Andrea Kunard. Scott McFarland: A Cultivated View, published by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2009, p. 12.

Text from the Regen Projects press release [Online] Cited 16/06/2009. No longer available online.

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'A Horse Drawn Hearse, Queens Royal Tours, 174 Anne, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario' 2009

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
A Horse Drawn Hearse, Queens Royal Tours, 174 Anne, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario
2009
From the series Niagara
Inkjet print
59.5 x 124 inches (151.1 x 315cm)
Edition of 5

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Boathouse with Moonlight' 2002

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Boathouse with Moonlight
2002
From the series Boathouse
Digital C-print
71 x 91 inches (180 x 231cm)
Edition of 5, 2 AP

 

“Boathouse with Moonlight” is an exploration of the technical advancements afforded by digital photography, created by assembling multiple exposures taken over the space of two hours under the light of a full moon. Unlike traditional photography, this image does not represent one specific moment captured at a particular site; rather, it shows an accumulation of moments that have been manipulated and layered to create a revised version of the boathouse and its surroundings. McFarland’s use of multiple exposures to produce the final image emphasises not only the duration of the photographic act, but also the many facets of the boathouse’s character. This type of building on British Columbia’s “Sunshine Coast” is disappearing with the construction of new, suburban-style retirement housing.

Text from the National Gallery of Canada website [Online] Cited 02/03/2019

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Gorse and Broom, West Heath, Hampstead' 2006

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Gorse and Broom, West Heath, Hampstead
2006
From the series Hampstead
Inkjet print
Edition of 5

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Women Drying Laundry on the Gorse, Vale of Health, Hampstead Heath' 2007

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Women Drying Laundry on the Gorse, Vale of Health, Hampstead Heath
2007
From the series Hampstead
Inkjet print
29 x 45 inches (73.7 x 114.3cm)
Edition of 5

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Inspecting, Allan O'connor Searches for Botrytis cinerea' 2003

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Inspecting, Allan O’connor Searches for Botrytis cinerea
2003
From the series Gardens
Digital C-print
40 x 48 inches (102 x 122cm)
Edition of 7

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Orchard View with the Effects of Seasons (Variation #1)' 2003-2006

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Orchard View with the Effects of Seasons (Variation #1)
2003-2006
From the series Gardens
Digital C-print
42 x 122 inches (106.7 x 309.9cm)
Edition of 3

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Empire' 2005

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
[Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif]
2005
From the series Empire
Inkjet print

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'Echinocactus grusonii' 2006

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
Echinocactus grusonii [Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif]
2006
From the series Empire
Inkjet print
24.5 x 27.5 inches (62 x 70cm)
Edition of 3
Private collection/Vancouver Art Gallery

 

This picture comes from Empire, a series on desert vegetation shot in the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. Henry E. Huntington, an art collector who made his fortune building railroads, founded the garden in 1919.

“The plantings [of the garden] are dense, and the soil is mostly hidden beneath the thriving vegetation,” writes Grant Arnold in a catalogue essay for the exhibition, “the fullness of the planting continually reminding the visitor of Huntington’s beneficence.” To many gallery visitors, however, these images of lush desert vegetation will simply be appealing to the eye.

Kevin Chong. “A different way of seeing,” on the CBC News website November 13, 2009 [Online] Cited 02/03/2019

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'The Granite Bowl in the Berlin Lust Garden' 2006

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
The Granite Bowl in the Berlin Lust Garden
2006
Inkjet print
43 x 62 inches (109.2 x 157.5cm)
Edition of 5

 

At first the photograph appeared to be a simple scene, one of no importance. The two young children, obviously related based on their similar physical features, seemed a bit awkward and posed, but otherwise, I thought it to be a snapshot, much like the one I took of the bowl while in Berlin. Upon learning how McFarland created this and many of his other photographs, I learned how complex of a scene this really is. McFarland uses multiple negatives, often taken over a matter of days, weeks, and even months, and combines them digitally into a seamless print. His interest is in breaking through the concept of a photograph being an image of a single instant in time and space.

A fuller narrative is created as well. With just one negative, there may only be one or two people depicted. We may just have the dog with his owner half shown, or even only half of the brother-sister group. But by overlapping the various negatives, Mr McFarland manipulates his work into a greater piece. We can now ask ourselves, why are the brother and sister so psychologically distant? Or, who is the small girl with the accordion and where is her mother? Is her mother the woman with the baby carriage? How long has that man been sleeping under the bowl? These are all questions that can be asked together because the negatives are combined that couldn’t be asked if we had just the single frame.

Jason Hosford. “Scott McFarland’s The Granite Bowl in the Berlin Lust Garten,” on the West L’Art website June 24, 2007 [Online] Cited 02/03/2019

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975) 'View of Vale of Health, looking towards Hampstead' 2007

 

Scott McFarland (Canadian, b. 1975)
View of Vale of Health, looking towards Hampstead
2007
From the series Hampstead
Inkjet print
27 x 42.5 inches (68.6 x 108 cm)
Edition of 5

 

 

With the stiff figures of a historical painting, Scott McFarland’s View of Vale of Health, Looking Towards Hampstead muddles ideas of what’s real and what’s not.

From the get-go, painting and photography have been inextricably bound together. The Pictorialists tried to make their photographs look like paintings. The Futurists, in their paintings, mimicked the blurred and segmented movement found in Etienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotographs. The photorealists created paintings whose subject was the photograph itself. And in his large-scale, backlit photo-transparencies, Jeff Wall has alluded to paintings by Nicolas Poussin, Edouard Manet, and Paul Cézanne, among others. The digital age has done nothing to diminish each medium’s obsession with the other.

This continued entwining of art forms is evident in Scott McFarland’s computer-montaged photographs, on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery. So is the parallel entanglement of nature and culture. Both conditions are conspicuous in his 2006 series, “Hampstead”, inspired by the landscapes of the early-19th-century English painter John Constable. McFarland’s colour photos, shot in various locations around London’s immense Hampstead Heath, pay homage to Constable’s attraction to the same place. They also play variations on that painter’s rendering of multiple versions of the same scene, and on his open-air studies of the changing effects of light and weather. …

Over the past decade, McFarland’s working methods have changed from straightforward analog photography to the creation of highly manipulated images in which he digitally splices together multiple segments of the same landscape or structure, shot over a period of days, weeks, or even months. In both variations of Orchard View With the Effects of the Seasons, for instance, the blossoms and foliage of spring, summer, and fall are contained within the same seamless panorama.

The digital assist means that there are no constraints of time, space, or documentary veracity in McFarland’s work: he can build whatever impossible pictures he wants and they will look “real”. At least until they’re closely scrutinised, revealing incongruities of light, shadow, time, and figuration. In this sense, his art challenges our understanding of the nature of the photograph and its relationship with the truth. There’s nothing really new about this project – as long as photography’s been around, it’s been manipulated by its practitioners. Photoshop, however, has added a vast digital dimension to the darkroom antics of earlier photo artists.

Robin Laurence. “Scott McFarland makes impossible pictures real at the Vancouver Art Gallery,” on the Georgia Straight website October 7th 2009 [Online] Cited 02/03/2019

 

 

Regen Projects
6750 Santa Monica Boulevard,
Los Angeles, CA 90038

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Exhibition: ‘Downstream: Colorado River Photographs of Karen Halverson’ at The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Exhibition dates: 30th May – 28th September, 2009

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Hite Crossing, Lake Powell, Utah' from the 'Downstream' series 1994-1995 from the exhibition 'Downstream: Colorado River Photographs of Karen Halverson' at The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, May - Sept, 2009

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Hite Crossing, Lake Powell, Utah from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

 

As clear as a bell!

Marcus


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

 

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Lodore Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument' 1994-1995 from the 'Downstream' series 1994-1995 from the exhibition 'Downstream: Colorado River Photographs of Karen Halverson' at The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, May - Sept, 2009

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Lodore Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Boulder Beach, Lake Mead, Nevada' from the 'Downstream' series 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Boulder Beach, Lake Mead, Nevada from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Wahweap Pool, Lake Powell, Arizona' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Wahweap Pool, Lake Powell, Arizona from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

 

To celebrate the expansion and reinstallation of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens presents an exhibition of works from American photographer Karen Halverson’s Colorado River series, on view May 30 through Sept. 28, 2009. Downstream: Colorado River Photographs of Karen Halverson will be on display in the Scott Galleries’ Susan and Stephen Chandler Wing, inaugurating a new changing exhibition space that will highlight photography and works on paper that, because of the fragile nature of the medium, cannot be placed on permanent display.

The exhibition will feature 26 works from Halverson’s Downstream series as well as a sampling of images from The Huntington’s historic holdings related to the Colorado River region, including photographs from John Wesley Powell’s pioneering expedition down the Colorado in 1871 and a snapshot album compiled in 1940 by Mildred Baker, one of the first women to successfully navigate the river from Green River, Wyo., to Boulder (now Hoover) Dam.

Halverson (b. 1941) says she woke one wintry morning in 1994 convinced that she needed to photograph the Colorado River. An accomplished landscape photographer who had already spent 20 years exploring the American West, she embarked on a two-year encounter with the vast terrain along the river’s serpentine route.

The desire to explain, understand, and experience the 1,700-mile river – which originates in Wyoming and Colorado before converging in Utah toward its terminus in Mexico – has exerted a powerful influence on a long line of explorers, scientists, thrill seekers, writers, artists, and photographers. Once largely wild, the modern river has been tamed by dams built to slake the American West’s thirst for water and power. Today the river’s reservoirs supply 30 million people.

“In her resonant imagery, Halverson speaks both to this immutable, rugged past while confronting the river’s complicated and often contested present,” says Jennifer Watts, curator of photographs at The Huntington.

Lush green riverbanks frame a seemingly remote Colorado River in Shafer Trail, Near Moab, Utah – a dramatic departure from the river-turned-lake in Wahweap Marina, Lake Powell, Arizona, in which the setting sun illuminates a satellite dish, a trio of passersby, and a jumble of houseboats set against distant rock outcroppings. Davis Gulch, Lake Powell, Utah captures Halverson’s voice especially succinctly: the power of nature in the form of a gigantic sandstone wall dwarfing a tiny group of plastic lawn chairs, lined up along the river bank, with not a soul in sight.

“In my travels along the Colorado,” says Halverson, “sometimes I find beauty, sometimes desecration, often a perplexing and absurd combination.”

Halverson’s large-format colour photography references the 19th-century era of exploration when the United States, still reeling from the Civil War, saw photographers fan across the West to make pictures for scientific and commercial ends. Many of these iconic views by William H. Bell, John K. Hillers, Timothy O’Sullivan and others form the core of The Huntington’s superlative photography collection. Halverson consulted these works in preparation for her own trips.

The two years Halverson spent hiking, driving, and rafting along the Colorado brought her to a more profound understanding of the river and her relationship to it. During her travels, Halverson wrote, “I feel my place, small and finite in relation to space and time: I feel my self, expansive and trusting.”

Text from The Huntington Library website [Online] Cited 12/06/2009. No longer available online

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Big River, California' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Big River, California from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Davis Gulch, Lake Powell' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Davis Gulch, Lake Powell from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

 

“In my travels along the Colorado, sometimes I find beauty, sometimes desecration, often a perplexing and absurd combination.”


Karen Halverson

 

 

One wintry morning in1994, Karen Halverson (b. 1941) awoke convinced she needed to photograph the Colorado River. An accomplished artist who had already spent 20 years exploring the American West, she set off on a two-year encounter with the vast, breathtaking terrain along the river’s serpentine route. “The impulse to photograph the Colorado River came to me out of the blue,” she writes, “but I acted on it as if it were my destiny.” Personal destiny and the Colorado River have long been linked in the lives of the explorers, scientists, writers, artists, and thrill seekers who have sought to understand and experience this remarkable river.

“Nature appears to have been partial to this stream,” noted “Captain” Samuel Adams, who described the river in 1869. The Colorado and its major tributary, the Green River, run 1,700 miles from headwaters in the Rocky Mountains and Wyoming’s Wind River Range to a terminus in Mexico. Sheer size helps explain the river’s enduring allure; the Colorado’s gargantuan watershed covers a quarter of a million miles and runs through seven states. The Colorado is the riparian centre and symbol of the American West. Once wild, the river has been tamed by dams built to slake the arid West’s demand for water and power; 30 million people are dependent on it today.

Halverson’s large-format colour photography alludes to a 19th-century era of exploration when photographers fanned out across the West to make pictures for scientific and commercial ends. Iconic views by William H. Bell (1830-1910), John K. Hillers (1843-1925), Timothy O’Sullivan (c. 1840-1882), and others captured timeless landscapes of fierce, often forbidding, beauty. Halverson looked at these works in preparation for her trips, viewing them as documentary and visual points of departure for her own image making. Beyond the debt she owes these photographic pioneers, Halverson is firmly rooted in a late 20th-century aesthetic that comments on humanity’s use, and misuse, of the environment.

Beginning in the 1970s, a group of photographers, almost all of them men – who are now sometimes called the “New Topographers” – used their cameras to criticise the effects of rampant urban and suburban growth on western lands. Sprawling cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas owe their existence almost entirely to the importation of water from the Colorado River. As Halverson rightly claims, today the river is a “water delivery system,” with its dozens of reservoirs, dams, and diversions ensuring the allocation of virtually every drop for human needs.

Yet Downstream is no visual jeremiad railing against environmental abuse. Nor is it a dispassionate travelogue of the two years Halverson spent hiking, driving, and rafting along the Colorado. The wild terrain that flabbergasted early explorers is still here in the Paleozoic strata of gigantic rock outcroppings, the ancient calm of ghostly canyons, the dizzying heights overlooking a ribbon of water far below. And the colours – ochre, cerulean blue, deep red, electric green – are all intensified against the palette of a dammed river running colder and deeper than if it flowed freely. A modern-day beauty even finds itself inscribed in steel and concrete, whether in the sleek form of a pipeline or the still surface of an irrigation canal.

But it is in the bizarre, sometimes humorous, intersections of past and present that Downstream gains its potency. Cheap plastic lawn chairs, sitting vacant, look puny and ridiculous against a looming canyon wall. Weekend revellers pump fists skyward on the shores of Lake Mead, a giant reservoir held in place by Hoover Dam. A garden hose waters a scrawny palm tree in a desert oasis populated by rows of RVs.

What is gained and what is lost by controlling the Colorado River? And what are the river’s limits? Halverson’s Downstream series asks the viewer to contemplate these questions in a time when the arid West’s thirsty population threatens to overwhelm technological as well as natural resources, and when our well-watered urban lives remain utterly disconnected from riparian realities. Through her resonant imagery, Halverson speaks to the immutability of the river’s past while confronting its complex, contested present and future.

Jennifer A. Watts, Curator of Photographs from “Colorado River Photographs of Karen Halverson,” The Huntington Library Halverson Gallery guide [Online] Cited 28/02/2019. No longer available online

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Near Palo Verde, California' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Near Palo Verde, California from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Imperial Dam, near Yuma, Arizona' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Imperial Dam, near Yuma, Arizona from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Wyoming' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Wyoming from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941) 'Shafer Trail, Near Moab, Utah' 1994-1995

 

Karen Halverson (American, b. 1941)
Shafer Trail, Near Moab, Utah from the Downstream series
1994-1995

 

 

The Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA  91108

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Closed Tuesdays

The Huntington Library website

Karen Halverson Photographs website

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Exhibition: ‘Sawdust Mountain’ photographs by Eirik Johnson at Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco

Exhibition dates: 21st May – 27th June, 2009

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Freshly Felled Trees, Nemah, Washington' 2007 from the exhibition 'Sawdust Mountain' photographs by Eirik Johnson at Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, May - June, 2009

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Freshly Felled Trees, Nemah, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2007

 

 

Not much joy in this melancholy tone poem, but there doesn’t need to be. Masses of history, memory, anxiety, isolation and death, all reinforced by Johnson’s photographic perspective, which seems to flatten out the pictorial plane. Some stunning photographs and others that don’t hit the mark, but overall a very strong body of work. View the complex, environmental, social documentary photographs of the Sawdust Mountain series on Eirik Johnson’s website.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

“When I was a young, my family would hunt for mushrooms in the forests of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains. Some days we would spend afternoons along the shallows of a river watching salmon fight their way to spawning grounds upstream. These were the icons of the region: forest and salmon, pillars of Northwest identity. These photographs address the complicated relationship between the region’s landscape, the industries that rely upon natural recourses, and the communities they support.

‘Sawdust Mountain’ is a melancholy love letter of sorts, a personal reflection on the region’s past, its hardscrabble identity and the turbulent future it must navigate.”


Eirik Johnson

 

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Junked Blue Trucks, Forks, Washington' 2007 from the exhibition 'Sawdust Mountain' photographs by Eirik Johnson at Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, May - June, 2009

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Junked Blue Trucks, Forks, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2007

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Elwha River Dam, Washington' 2008

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Elwha River Dam, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2008

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Stacked logs in Weyerhaeuser sort yard, Cosmopolis, Washington' 2007

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Stacked logs in Weyerhaeuser sort yard, Cosmopolis, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2007

 

 

Eirik Johnson’s colour photographs chronicle his study of Sawdust Mountain, a once idyllic patch of the Pacific Northwest now in decline after a century of human encroachment. The story is a familiar one – early settlers attracted by the sublime beauty and abundant natural resources – of Washington state in the case – began local nature-based industries that eventually depleted the natural resources. The romance of lumberjacks and fishermen taming the wilderness and living off the land has been replaced by the hardscrabble reality of those now trying to eke out a living as well as conservationists and ecologists trying to save and restore the landscape. Johnson presents a well-rounded portrait of a town and country struggling to find solutions to these conflicting demands. His photographs capture the history and legacy of the industries, the landscape at the centre of the vortex, and the changes undertaken to staunch the economic and ecological declines so all can survive.

Johnson was born in Seattle, WA and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington, Seattle and with a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. Sawdust Mountain photographs will also be exhibited at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington who co-published the accompanying book with Aperture. Other Johnson book and exhibitions include Borderlands from 2006 and Animal Holes from 2007. Johnson is currently living and teaching in Boston at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Text from the Rena Bransten Gallery website [Online] Cited 11/06/2009. No longer available online

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Weyerhaeuser sorting yard along the Chehalis River, Cosmopolis, Washington' 2006

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Weyerhaeuser sorting yard along the Chehalis River, Cosmopolis, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2006

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Stacked alder boards, Seaport Lumber Planer, South Bend, Washington' 2007

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Stacked alder boards, Seaport Lumber Planer, South Bend, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2007

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Adult books, firewood and truck for sale, Port Angeles, Washington' 2008

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Adult books, firewood and truck for sale, Port Angeles, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2008

 

 

A culmination of four years of photographing throughout Oregon, Washington, and Northern California, Sawdust Mountain focuses on the tenuous relationship between industries reliant upon natural resources and the communities they support.

Timber and salmon are the bedrock of a regional Northwest identity, but the environmental impact of these declining industries has been increasingly at odds with the contemporary ideal of sustainability. In this, his second book, Johnson reveals a landscape imbued with an uncertain future – no longer the region of boomtowns built upon the riches of massive old-growth forests.

Johnson, a Seattle native, describes his photographs as “a melancholy love letter of sorts, my own personal ramblings.” Through this poetic approach, Sawdust Mountain records a region affected by historic economic complexities, and by extension, one aspect of our fraught relationship with the environment in the twenty-first century.

Text from the Aperture Foundation website. No longer available online

The book Sawdust Mountain by Eirik Johnson is available on his website.

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Scrapped train, Arlington, Washington' 2006

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Scrapped train, Arlington, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2006

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Totem poles, Winston, Oregon' 2006

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Totem poles, Winston, Oregon from the series Sawdust Mountain
2006

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974) 'Mill, Aberdeen, Washington' 2007

 

Eirik Johnson (American, b. 1974)
Mill, Aberdeen, Washington from the series Sawdust Mountain
2007

 

 

Rena Bransten Gallery
1275 Minnesota St.,
San Francisco, CA 94107

Opening hours:
Thursday – Saturday, 12.00 – 4.00pm

Rena Bransten Gallery website

Eirik Johnson website

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