“Photo-Poetics: An Anthology” at the Guggenheim
The Guggenheim Museum is presenting a new exhibit “Photo-Poetics: An Anthology” that features artists and art that reflects an emerging new trend in art photography.
Art evolves with technology, and artists assimilate and reflect a changing world through their art. Cell phones cameras and social media have transformed the way people disseminate information.
The exhibit, entitled “Photo-Poetics: An Anthology,” contains more than 70 works of contemporary photography. As described by Curator Jennifer Blessing, the term “photo poetics” refers to “an art that self-consciously investigates the laws of photography and the nature of photographic representation, reproduction, and the photographic object.”
In the wake of rapid digital transformation, the ten contemporary artists featured in the exhibit confirm that photography is not a lost art. They include Claudia Angelmaier, Erica Baum, Anne Collier, Moyra Davey, Leslie Hewitt, Elad Lassry, Lisa Oppenheim, Erin Shirreff, Kathrin Sonntag, and Sara VanDerBeek. In tying the exhibit together, all of the artists take a studio-based approach to still-life photography that incorporates objects, such as books, magazines, and record covers, into the final work.
As described by the curators: The artists “investigate the nature, traditions, and magic of photography at a moment characterized by rapid digital transformation. They attempt to rematerialize the photograph through meticulous printing, using film and other disappearing photo technologies, and creating artist’s books, installations, and photo-sculptures.”
Lisa Oppenheim’s The Sun is Always Setting Somewhere Else (2006) is a stunning example. The works all feature sunset photos that were taken by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and posted on Flickr. Oppenheim held the images at arm’s length to align with the sunsets in her native New York and then reshot the two “sunsets.”
Equally interesting, Erica Baum’s Naked Eye series features single images of paperbacks from the 1960s and 1970s that appear to be collages. The photographs are taken from the side, capturing slivers of the text as well as the worn but brightly colored covers.
“Photo-Poetics: An Anthology” runs through March 23, 2016. Additional details reading the exhibit can be found at the museum’s website.