On view as part of the Pingyao International Photography Festival earlier this year. The Edge of Vision, curated by Lyle Rexer, presented a group of contemporary photographers who base their practice in some form of abstraction. Click and scroll the images for a virtual experience of the installation in China.

Special thanks to photographer Nils Duval and Matthieu Torrano from China Time Machine Image Centre, who created this VR. CTMIC was instrumental in printing this and several other exhibitions at the festival.

The exhibition, specially expanded for Pingyao, was divided into several sections: “The Aesthetics of Perception,” “The Politics of the Image,” and “The Poetics of Light, Space and Time.” Taken together they force us to ask, what, after all, is a photograph, and where does its meaning lie? In the picture itself? In the world or its phenomena? In us? These questions are as vital and open today as they were 170 years ago, when no one knew exactly what a photograph should look like or what it might disclose.

Artists included in this presentation are Bill Armstrong, Carel Balth, Ellen Carey, Richard Caldicott, Roland Fischer, Manuel Geerinck, Shirine Gill, Barbara Kasten, Seth Lambert, Charles Lindsay, Roger Newton, Nicki Stager, and Penelope Umbrico.

View new videos from the weekly series of artist’s interviews with Barbara Kasten and Carel Balth included in the exhibition now on view at Aperture Gallery, The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography.

In the first video-clip, Barbara Kasten presents her work Studio Construct 17 as based on physical constructions that play with light and are created only for the purpose of being photographed. By this approach, the photograph itself becomes the object and is removed from being representative or documentary. Kasten expands that while subject matter is inherent to photography, her images are unidentifiable and exist as records of light that explore spatial and formal ambiguity. This distance results in a more indirect connection between the viewer and the work.

In the second video-clip, artist Carel Balth explains the process behind his works Moving IV and Madrid V, and how his appropriation of images through a digital format functions as a new medium. Originally recorded as digital video taken by Balth, he carefully selected screen-grabs that are later printed on canvas called Piezographs. He explains that this approach creates a new vantage that confronts reality though light, space, time, and movement into a culmination of images. Balth likes the idea that people may not completely understand his work at first, and recommends The Edge of Vision by curator Lyle Rexer for further insight to his aesthetic.

Click here to view The Edge of Vision limited-edition portfolio.

Click here to view related microsite including previously posted videos with Lyle Rexer part 1 & part 2, Bill Armstrong, Seth Lambert, Charles Lindsay, Jack Sal, Penelope Umbrico, Silvio Wolf.

View new videos from the weekly series of artist’s interviews with Ellen Carey and Manuel Geerinck included in the exhibition now on view at Aperture Gallery, The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography.

In the first video clip, Ellen Carey presents her works in the exhibition: the large-scale Pulls with Lifts and Drops of film pulled through the rollers of a Polaroid large-format camera and her color photogram, PushPins, where the artist used pushpins to perforate the photographic paper in the darkroom. Carey explains how abstraction in photography challenges the viewer to rethink the medium, and go beyond the narrative side to explore new arrays of light and color compositions as well as new processes using meaningful materials that reference the history of photography. She also highlights the physicality of her work often exhibited through large-scale installations.

Ellen Carey from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

In the second video clip, Belgian artist Manuel Geerinck, who started his career as a painter, speaks about his unique process combining his drawings that he then photographs in motion. Inspired by minimalism and the early days of photography, Geerinck explains how his work is at the crossroads of photography and painting as well as abstraction and figurative, always “at the edge.” He also speaks about his exploration of colors through the photographic medium.

Manuel Geerinck from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

Stay tuned next Thursday for video clips of Barbara Kasten and Carel Balth.

Click here to view The Edge of Vision limited-edition portfolio including Manuel Geerinck.

Click here to view related microsite including previously posted videos with Lyle Rexer part 1 & part 2, Bill Armstrong, Seth Lambert, Charles Lindsay, Jack Sal, Penelope Umbrico, Silvio Wolf.

As part of the interview series, watch new video clips of artists Bill Armstrong and Seth Lambert from the exhibition now on view through July 16 at Aperture Gallery, The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography curated by Lyle Rexer.

In the first video clip, Bill Armstrong puts in context his Mandala #450 piece that is in the show with his Infinity series of abstract blurred meditative images that he has been working on for the past 12 years. Going through his work since the 1980’s, Armstrong explains why he uses blurring as a process and his “painterly approach to photography.” At the end, he also introduces his new video work.

Bill Armstrong from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

In the second clip, Seth Lambert contextualizes his work in the show Nothing on the Bed of an Epson Expression 10000XL within his Failures series of grids mapping out anything from beard hair, mirror pieces to nothing with a blank scan. The latter on view in the show still presents small residues called “artefacts” that Lambert has mapped out individually into a perfect grid that always fails. He also highlights the importance of the physical object in photography even if his work is often all digital and computer generated.

Seth Lambert from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

Click here to hear more about his process in an online radio show he did last week on ARTonAIR with curator Lyle Rexer, artists Charles Lindsay and Penelope Umbrico included in the exhibition.

Stay tuned next Thursday for video clips of Barbara Kasten and Ellen Carey.

Click here to view The Edge of Vision limited-edition portfolio including Bill Armstrong.

Click here to view related microsite.

Watch previously posted videos with Lyle Rexer part 1 & part 2, Charles Lindsay, Jack Sal, Penelope Umbrico, and Silvio Wolf.

The work of some of the most important photographers of the twentieth century is currently on view in The Christopher Hyland Collection of Photography, By Way of These Eyes: The Sublime, Exotic and Familiar at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, CT  from June 6 through September 6, 2009. Tonight marks the opening reception to celebrate the show. Over the last decade, the museum has organized a distinguished series of exhibitions of contemporary photography and this show focuses on a collection of work of twentieth-century photographers amassed by the keen eye of Christopher Hyland. Hyland, founder of one of the world’s leading textile manufacturing firms and a collector since his youth, has put together a body of work informed by his exceptional eye and world travels. The well-known tastemaker and private art collector, based in Chelsea, is an avid supporter of his neighbor, Aperture Foundation. Included in the Christopher Hyland Collection, which features works by the  renowned  artists Herb Ritz,  Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Maplethorpe, Vik Muniz , Sally Mann, Edward Weston, and Edward Steichen, are works purchased from the Aperture Limited-Edition Photographs program: highlights include Christine, 2003 by Richard Renaldi ; Eva Le Porge, Jock Sturges; Michael Wolf’s tc39 and tc88;  The Edge of Vision Portfolio featuring the work of Bill Armstrong, Richard Caldicott, Manuel Geerinck, Mikko Sinervo, and Nicki Stager; portfolios by Paul Strand and single works by Brett Weston, among others. Exciting programming is scheduled as an accompaniment to the exhibition, with lectures centered on many of the artists Aperture has published through the years: Diane Arbus, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz. and Sally Mann.  Also of note is the August 13 Art Happy Hour, titled the “The F stops here,” feature Ellen Carey and Bill Armstrong, included in the just published The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. The New Britain Museum of American Art is a great destination for the photography enthusiast this summer!

The Christopher Hyland Collection of Photography, By Way of These Eyes: The Sublime, Exotic and Familiar
Saturday, June 6—Sunday, September 6, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, June 12, 2009 5:00—7:00 pm
New Britain Museum of American Art
56 Lexington Street
New Britain, CT
(860) 229-0257