After I had been in this gallery some while I nodded as I passed the young woman attendant working there. She smiled and said: “You must really like photography.” “And why do you say that”, I asked. “Because you been in here a long time and you’ve looked at just about everything. Everyone else just looks at a few pictures and then they leave.” “That’s because they can’t see anything,” I said. “When you stand in front of the photographs, the only things you see are the reflections of the lights up on the ceiling.”
She turned and looked at the nearest photograph. “Oh, yeah, I see what you mean.” Now if she could see that, granted …with prompting, why couldn’t the people who designed this installation see that? Does it have to do with selective vision wherein we have an area of interest and we see only those things that fall within the scope of that interest but none of the details of the things beyond it? I can imagine this installation being planned; I can imagine thought being given to the placement of the photographs by subject or by the dates they were made, etc. But for some reason the most important part of this installation, the lighting, (without light there is no photograph), was unseen by anyone on the design team, or, if it was, it was acceptable to them.
The gallery is in the Perelman Building, an annex across the street from the main building of the Museum. A standard issue art deco/classic revival building that looks to have been a place of government offices, it was taken over by the museum and when I was here two years ago it had just been opened. A jitney transports the museum visitors to and fro. On the ground floor the building has been converted to three small and one larger exhibition spaces, it has an entry and a café, and beyond and above there are offices for museum staff.
The gallery used for photography exhibitions is a rectangle about three times longer than it is wide. There are permanent tracks in the ceiling for the standard canister lighting fixtures. The canister lamps throw a light that illuminates a general area with only the slightest ability, apparently, to focus that light in a specific place. Looking into each photograph one sees the reflection of that one light source obliquely overhead as well as the other light fixtures near it. One also sees the reflections of himself and the photographs on the other side of the room. The photographs on the end walls reflect the length of the room and all of the overhead lighting fixtures. In some of the photographs this creates wonderful patterns of little lights ….but I doubt that that was the intention of the exhibition designers.
Platinum prints are something of a rarity. They were first made in the latter part of the nineteenth century up to the period of World War I when the materials became scarce because of their need for the war effort. Just before that time the silver gelatin print was introduced and as it had a faster developing time it became the preferred standard print. Eventually the platinum print was abandoned. In the 1960’s Irving Penn researched the process and working with DuPont Chemical was able to revive it. (Only one of his photographs is shown. Alas, it is at the long end of the room, it is horizontal, and it presents not a photograph but a dazzle of lights.) At the present there are a few photographers who continue to use the process.
Unlike the silver gelatin print in which the solution deposits the silver on the surface of the paper, so that those photographs are all surface, the chemicals used in the platinum process penetrate the fibers of the paper. By treating the paper with successive layers of the chemical and repeating the printing process, the photographer can make photographs with the deepest and richest tonal values. Because the chemicals can be brushed onto the paper, either once or in successive passages, effects can be obtained that cannot be obtained in any other process. Platinum prints can only be contact printed. Although they are more stable than silver gelatin prints, they are more susceptible to atmospheric pollutants which cause an acid reaction in the paper.
A vitrine in the center of the room holds three copies of Paul Strand’s iconic photograph, Wall Street. One is a recent, 1976, platinum print, one is a silver gelatin print, and one is a photogravure. Paul Strand’s original platinum print, one of only two, is on a facing wall. As these prints are placed on the bottom of the display case one has to lean over the glass in order the see them. Unfortunately, leaning over the case is a blinding experience as the only thing that can then be seen is the bright glare of the light pointing straight down from directly over head. Whereas an opportunity has been presented for the public to educate its eye, under these poor conditions the objects presented might as well be pages ripped out of old copies of Life Magazine.
On this blog I attempt to write only positive responses to the exhibitions and artworks that I see. It would seem to me that negative commentary loses an audience rather than builds one and I certainly would like to build an audience for discussions of the fine arts. But because poor museum lighting is beginning to be more and more common I think something needs to be said …as in the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
This exhibition is a waste of time all around: for the staff that spent time putting it together and for the public that came here and, as per the attendant, walked in and then walked right back out. As I know people who make their living designing lighting installations for various upscale venues, and as I know that there are a very wide variety of lighting fixtures on the market that serve the needs of those venues, and as I have seen exhibitions with lighting successfully designed using those fixtures at the International Center for Photography in New York, I can say with complete confidence that the lighting in this exhibition, as well as that of exhibitions I have seen recently at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,( Harry Callahan, Yousef Karsh), and The National Gallery in Washington, (In the Darkroom), see below, is unacceptable and should not be tolerated by a museum or the public.
It’s possible the upper echelon of the museum management thinks that photography is not really one of the fine arts and that well designed lighting using the correct instruments is an unwise expenditure of time and money. For a corporation the first priority is to increase profits. The quality of the product or service produced is no longer of any importance. The mission statement for customer relations now reads: “Damn the customer”. Whatever the reason for this poor lighting, I could not help but suspect that it was just another example of the corporate take over of the fine arts institutions in this country.
As I was one of three visitors in this annex of the museum, perhaps the public, a public that walks in and then walks right back out, has spoken: attendance in the photography galleries is low because the public will not accept the poor quality of the exhibitions here. Considering that the public’s standards are pretty low to begin with, that should be doubly embarrassing to the museum.
One last consideration: if the staff thinks that this presentation is “OK”, (and should museum exhibitions be just “OK”?), perhaps the museum management should consider getting a new staff.
Despite not being able to see the photographs well I was aware that among these early works the subject matter of photography …landscape, portrait, and still life, followed the precedent set in the field of painting. In early photography there were the pictorialists who used the camera to create works “like painting”. Later there were the purists, Paul Strand among them, who attempted to make works with the camera that only the camera could make, although with his focus on the common and mundane I am too often reminded of Dutch genre painting.
That makes you aware that for many years all photographs were very much alike and that the differences between them were in the camera angle and in the kind of prints made from the negatives. Seeing all of that in these older photographs helps me to understand the photographers who came along in the late 1950’s who were itching to do “something more”. It also helps me to better understand more recent photographers who do things now that I’m not sure I understand at all. But since I think I understand why they want to go there, perhaps there is hope for me yet.
http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/362.html
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