Love Letters to the Forerunners of Photography Contemporary Uses of Old Photographic Techniques
A New and Mysterious Art The title of the exhibition at Howard Greenberg Gallery is drawn from an 1857 essay about the relationship Howard Greenberg Gallery, New between art and photography by Lady Elizabeth York Eastlake , a British author, art critic and art historian. 15 September — 29 October 2016 She wrote, “ It is now more than fifteen years ago that specimens of a new and mysterious art were first exhibited to our wondering gaze .”
Curator: Jerry Spagnoli (b. New York, 1956) ▪ A photographer since the mid-1970s ▪ Considered the leading expert in the revitalization of the daguerreotype process ▪ Since 1994, he has experimented with 19th-century materials and studied the effects achieved by early practitioners in order to understand the technical aspects of the process, as well as its expressive, visual potential as a medium
Industrialization homogenized the photographic documentation of the visual world, making the results more predictable . In reaction, the artists in “ A New and Mysterious Art”: Ancient Photographic Methods in Contemporary Art acknowledge and embrace the primitive forms of photography. Utilizing these early methods – and equipment – today allows for a newly personalized expression and a direct engagement with the medium .
Dan Estabrook Conjurer’s Hand , 2002 Unique Diptych of Waxed Calotype Negative, and Salt Print 9 5/8 x 7 5/8 inches
Dan Estabrook Still Live , 2005 Unique Diptych of Pencil on Waxed Calotype Negative, and Salt Print 8 x 9 7/8 inches
Sally Mann Untitled (Self-Portrait) , 2012 Unique Collodion Wet-Plate Positive on Metal with Sandarac Varnish 15 x 13 inches
Matthias Olmeta Letter to my Grandchildren 5 series: Pablo (left), Khansine (right), 2016 Ambrotype, Wet Collodion on Acrylic Glass, Varnish, Pain and Gold Leaf 27 7/8 x 27 7/8 inches
Takashi Arai Exposed in a Hundred Suns series: Maquette for a Multiple Monument for B29: Bockscar , 2014 Daguerreotype 28 5/8 x 86 1/2 inches
“There is an immediacy to images made using antique processes, and an urgency that occupies photographers as they prepare and work with difficult and temperamental methods. It is this energy which gives these images their power .” Jerry Spagnoli
“[Working] with an older process, it is going to do what it wants to do , not what you want it to do. With Photoshop, you can compel the image to be exactly what you want . . . But you learn to look , I think, by not knowing exactly what you’re going to get.” “I like photographs that draw attention to the fabrication involved in the image. The vitality [that exists] in work [which] is basically handmade .” Jerry Spagnoli
Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography Victoria & Albert Museum, London 13 October 2010 - 20 February 2011 "The methods of camera-less photography are so simple but the results can be so profound . But I don't want people to get too hung up on the technical side. A more interesting question is 'Why make a photograph without a camera?' Is there a nostalgia for the alchemical appeal of vanishing, alternative chemistry-based processes in today's digital age?“ Martin Barnes
Floris Neusüss Pierre Cordier Garry Fabian Miller Susan Derges Adam Fuss 5 Photographers, 5 Visions
Floris Neusüss (b. Lennep, Germany, 1937) ▪ Photogram ▪ Körperfotogramms (or whole-body photograms) that he first exhibited in the 1960s 'Homage to Talbot: The Latticed Window, Lacock Abbey, 2010 Pictogram (left) Barbie 3 , 1993 Photogramm on Autoreversalpape 40 x 30 cm (right)
Pierre Cordier (b. Brussels, Belgium, 1933) ▪ Discovered the 'chemigram' process in 1956 ▪ Working more like a painter or printmaker than a photographer, Cordier replaces the canvas or printing plate with photographic paper. ▪ The process has become the artwork and his style is his technique. Chemigram 8/2/61 I, 1961 (left) Chemigram 7/5/82 II ''Pauli Kleei ad Marginem‘’ (right)
Garry Fabian Miller (b. Bristol, England, 1957) ▪ In 1984 , Miller discovered a method of using a photographic enlarger that allowed a direct translation between plants and the photographic print. ▪ Turned to making abstract images in the darkroom, using only glass vessels filled with liquids, or cut-paper forms to cast shadows and filter light. Breathing in the Beech Wood, Homeland, Dartmoor, Twenty-four Days of Sunlight, May 2004 ( left) Petworth Window 13 , February 2000 (right)
Susan Derges (b. London, England, 1955) ▪ Photograms of Water ▪ Her works can be seen as alchemical, transformative acts that test the threshold between matter and spirit. Vessel No.3 1995 Dye Destruction Print ( left) Arch 4 (summer) , 2007/8 Digital C-print from Dye Destruction Print (right)
Adam Fuss (b. London, England, 1961) ▪ His work concerns the discovery of the unseen ▪ Explores metaphysical ideas of non-sensory insight My Ghost series: Butterfly Daguerreotype , 2001 Daguerreotype ( left) Invocation , 1992 Dye Destruction Print Photogram (right)
Overdue Love Letters ▪ Allows more of the human touch ▪ Nature of techniques slows down the whole process ▪ Serendipity ▪ Uniqueness and unpredictability ▪ Finally have time and spare capacity to explore these techniques for their artisitic potential 19 th Century techniques are still relevant to contemporary practitioners!
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Biblio iograp graphy hy (T (Trey) y) 1. http://www.americandaguerreotypes.com/ch2.html 2. https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiIy_C1iKLdAhU ZbisKHSzbA8YQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F405042560221943881%2F&psig=AO vVaw1PbW4eBWfwlw_TguRE_4D6&ust=1536175080776004 3. http://www.photo-museum.org/photography-history/ 4. https://www.alternativephotography.com/articles/images_articles/jgm_daguerre.jpg https://skn-wp-assets.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2727b-150-231x300.jpg 5. https://www.photographymuseum.com/DeK350hiWMK.jpg 6. https://www.thephoblographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Daguerreotype-National-Portrait-Gallery.jpg 7. https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7384/14116722134_2d51a46600_b.jpg 8. http://www.americandaguerreotypes.com/fig5.jpg 9. http://tfaoi.org/am/16am/16am49.jpg
Biblio iograp graphy hy (S (Shu-yin ying) g) 1. https://www.vam.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/179527/vanda-shadowcatchers.pdf 2. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/camera-less-photography-artists/ 3. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/camera-less-photography-arresting-developments- 2097557.html https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/artists-make-light-work-with-no-lens-1.517872 4. https://medium.com/f-stop-magazine/a-new-and-mysterious-art-howard-greenberg-gallery-246eb62390c1 5. https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/artists-make-light-work-with-no-lens-1.517872 6. https://vimeo.com/13149612 7. https://www.lensculture.com/articles/chuck-close-a-couple-ways-of-doing-something 8. http://www.howardgreenberg.com/exhibitions/a-new-and-mysterious-art?view=slider#31 9. http://time.com/4516809/daguerreotype-photography/
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