The
Empire State Building in Bedroom, 1994
(Courtesy of Abelardo Morell and Edwynn Houk Gallery)
My very first thought was of 'collage/montage/inversion' and a link to John Stezaker, about whom I had written only a few days earlier - here. It isn't collage, of course, as I could quickly appreciate, but the connections were underway! And, collage or not, the juxtaposition of two seemingly dissociated 'images' to arrive at a new meaning is certainly in line with Stezaker.
Reading on about Morell's Camera Obscura works and exploring his range further online, I was (and remain) puzzled as to why I don't find references to him in the considerable array of photography and art books in my collection; but the use of swathes of black plastic to convert a room into the camera obscura did ring a bell somewhere - and led me to the 'Genius of Photography' series that the BBC did in 2006/7. Sure enough, there he is, in the first few minutes of the first programme, right behind Kertéz's 'Meudon' photograph, draping a palatial Venetian interior in black plastic, cutting that crucial small hole, and creating this:
Santa
Maria della Salute in Palazzo Livingroom, Venice, Italy 2006
(Courtesy of Abelardo
Morell and Edwynn Houk Gallery)
I am reassured!
'The Universe Next Door', a recently published
monograph, largely picks up the story of Morell's photography from 1986 onwards. He was 38 by then, a father for the first
time; was teaching photography, with a Masters from Yale; and must have had
some seriously formative life experiences since being born in Cuba, seeing his
father arrested by the post-revolutionary government, moving to New York (with
little or no English) at the age of 13, and studying under Tod Papageorge at Yale
- to mention just a few. But 1986 seems
to have seen a significant change of direction.
In a sense, he came indoors, from street photography, to create
different, more thoughtful, more contemplative, more experimental images. He accredits the change to becoming a father
- both from an attitudinal viewpoint (seeing the world through new eyes) and
from a practical one (spending time caring for his new son). Since then, as is illustrated in the book and
on his website, his range has included
images of books, artworks, museums, 'still life', photograms, paper cut-outs,
as well as the camera obscura and its more recent descendant, his 'tent
camera'.
What
comes across very strongly to me, as a student of, and late-comer to,
photography, is an ever-present enthusiasm and fascination for the process of
photographic image-making. All these
images seem to interrogate the medium, probing and seeking out the
possibilities. So, in that respect,
there is an intellectual quality to them.
But at the same time, they are interesting images in their own right -
as though there is something for the casual beholder as well as the curator and
the academic. These two, quite
different, examples demonstrate the point. Light
Bulb, 1991 was created to illustrate
the optical principles of photography to his students (and to delight them in
those principles, too, as with the camera obscura). I like the use of a crude cardboard box on an
old table top - the 'homely' physicality feels close to some of my own efforts
in the last few months (here). Yet the image appeared in a poster and
brochure cover for MOMA in 1992. That
seemingly simple, homemade set up has something fundamental to say about
photography's ability to transform and re-present. Likewise - albeit in a very different way - Nadelman/Hopper,
2008. On the face of it, another apparently simple
juxtaposition (of two artworks) - but the 'magic' of the photographic
transformation, the careful framing and lighting, produce an image that is both
attractive in its own right but also open to multiple readings.
At
a personal level, I am encouraged by a quote from Morell in the BJP article. Referring to his 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' illustrations, he says, "I
thought I would make pictures that are very low tech, with pages taken out of
the book and stuck together with tape."
I wish I'd read that a few weeks ago when I was thinking about my most
recent assignment - here! This is a good example:
It
Was Much Pleasanter At Home, 1998
(Courtesy of Abelardo Morell and Edwynn Houk Gallery)
Looking at the 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' series, I can feel the physical
delight in cutting, copying, resizing, cutting some more, juxtaposing,
assembling, lighting, etc ... and then, eventually, seeing that finished
outcome - turning out, perhaps, even better than he expected. I had thought about attempting to create
three-dimensional 'assemblies' for my own assignment and this encourages me to
go back to that idea at some stage. However,
one can respond to the process of creating these images in a broader and more
fundamental way. These may be
illustrations for a children's story, but they confirm to me the immense scope
that exists for experimentation in different manners of 'photographic' response
to the world around us.
Abelardo Morell's own
experimentation has taken him on to the 'tent camera', a moveable camera
obscura equipped with periscope, prisms etc, that has enables him to go out
into the landscape and create images of the world projected onto the ground
within the tent.
Tent
Camera Image on Ground: View of the Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, Yosemite
National Park, California 2012
(Courtesy of Abelardo
Morell and Edwynn Houk Gallery)
So, once again, two very different
images/elements are combined to seek a new meaning. Interesting as they are, I feel less of a
personal response to these images - truthfully.
They have something painterly about them, which Morell himself
identifies; and there is a possible reference to pixels in some, such as
above. (He does now use digital
methods.) But most significant of all,
for me, is the ongoing desire to explore the possibilities and the different
ways in which photography can look at the world - 'The Universe Next Door'. In her introductory essay in the book of that
name, Elizabeth Siegel, Associate
Curator in the Department of Photography at The Art Institute of Chicago, says
that "... Morell has watched developments in contemporary photography with
interest and has at times, he says, felt like a defender of photography to
those who proclaim its demise." She
goes on to say that, "He maintains his belief, even in the present age of
digital convenience, that the photograph must be worked for and earned; he
continues to delight in conceiving pictures and laboring towards their
execution." Coming as I do, from
an entirely digital introduction to photography, I sometimes wonder whether I
have missed out by not pursuing the detailed exploration of its original
methods. Chances are that many - perhaps
including Abelardo Morell (and certainly some OCA tutors!) - would say that I
have. But I have neither the time nor
feel the inclination to do so at present and, crucially, it is in those notions
of 'working for' and 'earning' the image that the key lessons lie here, whether
it is executed by digital methods or any other.
It
is good, as a student (even a decidedly mature one), to study artists that are
new to one and to feel some sense of connection with what they are doing and
their approach to their art. There are
reassuring, inspiring and, also, challenging connections in looking at Abelardo
Morells work, and I will continue to look in more detail as I press on with my
own journey of exploration through the medium of photography.
'Postscript
Connections'
I'm tucking this away as an
anecdotal 'postscript' to avoid any idea that it is anything other than a
light-hearted reference to my own work in the context of Morell. But - I couldn't help recalling some
photographs that I made almost seven years ago, a few weeks after acquiring my
first digital SLR camera. Having played
with it for a while, I made myself put the camera on a tripod, turn the dial to
'Manual', point it at a few 'objects' on an old table, and begin to think more
carefully about what I was doing.
Honestly, these are two of the first 'thoughtful' photographs that I
made!
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