On Wednesday, February 12th, the Art Alliance gathered at the Alumni Center for lunch and a presentation about the new exhibition, Aperture Remix: A Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration, presented by Jacinda Russell, associate professor of photography at Ball State University. Aperture Remix celebrates Aperture Magazine’s influence in fine arts photography since the Foundation was created in the 1952. Exhibition curator, Lesley Martin, chose ten contemporary photographers to select a specific Aperture publication or artist that had been particularly influential in their own work.
Russell highlighted several contemporary photographers and the work of the photographers they chose to pay homage to from the show. Throughout her talk, she included other work by the photographers, enhancing our understandings of the photography on display in Aperture Remix.
Photographs by Stephen Shore and Doug Rickard on display as part of the Aperture Exhibition at DOMA.
The first pair of photographers’ work discussed was the work of Stephen Shore and Doug Rickard. Self-taught photographer and Manhattan native, Stephen Shore set out on his first road trip of many in 1973. It was his first glimpse of America, and proved to be the inspiration for his future work. His photographs reflect the changing American culture and explore mass production and consumer culture. He photographs with a frontal approach, and many of his photographs are reminiscent of postcards. Contemporary photographer, Doug Rickard was drawn to the subject matter and approach of Shore. His previous work involved setting up his camera in front of a computer screen, and photographing the images from Google Maps displayed on the screen. The work tackles issues of race, politics, and class. In response to Shore’s series, Uncommon Places, Rickard photographed old postcards, titling the series Uncommon Pictures. Both series are connected by a loss of idealism.
Stephen Shore, West Ninth Avenue, Amarillo, Texas, October 2, 1974
Doug Rickard, #82.948842, Detroit, MI, (2009), 2010
| Russell went on to talk about another pairing of work by Penelope Umbrico and several master photographers including Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith. Penelope Umbrico was inspired by photographs of the mountains that appeared in the Aperture Master of Photography books. For her contemporary piece Moving Mountains, she uses smartphone camera apps to make new photographs of the mountains that appeared in those books. As a photographer, Umbrico works with multiple images of the same subject photographed in multiple ways such as changing the orientation of the subject and adding colored filters (seen in the exhibition on an iPad). She connects these two series by taking the same subjects, a mountain landscape that was photographed by master photographers, and photographing them in a different way. |
Penelope Umbrico, Moving Mountains (1850-2012), 2012
The exhibition will be on view through March 30th in the Special Exhibitions Gallery of DOMA.
Director of Education, Tania Said will lead a drop-in tour on Tuesday, February 18, at 12 noon. The interactive tour is part of the Art High at Noon program which compares works of art to promote discussion about art.
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