Harold E. Edgerton: In a Flash!
Bill Chapman: A Fool Such as Us Kevin Bennett Moore: Safe In My Garden
Alcove Gallery, Nicole Buchanan: Strange Fruit
March 19th – April 24th, 2021
Harold E. Edgerton: In a Flash!
Born in Fremont, Nebraska in 1903, Harold E. Edgerton, or “Doc” as he was known to his students, friends and colleagues, was a scientist, teacher, inventor, and artist. Edgerton’s invention of the stroboscope changed how we photograph and how we see and understand the world of motion. Stopping Time was magical and allowed us to see what the human eye could not! The strobe clarified and revealed mysteries –changing and informing our perceptions.
There are two basic technical procedures involved: the first is a single flash, that has a very short duration. The other, multiflash, often made in total darkness, is a series of flash exposures onto one film revealing movement through time and space. The content of these slices of time, or series of movements, is shown through the form and grace created by its own action and the stopping power of the camera and strobe.
The photographs in this exhibit are but a fraction of the tens-of-thousands Edgerton had created. These 10 dye transfer images, a collaboration between Edgerton and his student and colleague, Gus Kayafas, were published in 1985. These made the point: Milk Drop Coronet, 1957, a single flash of a splash from a drop of milk onto the red top of a cookie tin. Another, Moscow Circus, 1963, is a multiflash, a series of multiple flash exposures onto one film revealing movement through time and space. The content of these slices of time, or series of movements is shown with beauty through the form and grace created by its own action and the stopping power of the camera and strobe. Whether the exposure is less than one-millionth of a second or a series of short exposures a hundredths of a second apart revealing an inherent form, Edgerton shares with us his belief that the world is an infinitely interesting place worth looking at carefully and deserving our inquiry and celebration. He was the artist whose sense of what is right and beautiful goes beyond simple recognition of beauty (although that is often enough) to seeking the moment and configuration that creates the simultaneous questioning and astonishment as the answer is discovered within the image. His audience is artists and collectors, ten-year old children, educated sophisticates, and the rest of the world who, upon taking the time to look, discover a rich revelation of things normally unseen.
His photographs are in more than 60 international museums and numerous important collections worldwide. MoMA fist collected and exhibited his work in 1936/7 and the Whitney held a terrific exhibit in NY soon after opening their new space.
Note: These images were made from 1938 – 1973 at that time the bullet was used to show speed and demonstrate the quickness, the stopping of time using the strobe. Long before mass shootings and school shootings became a part of our culture.
Bill Chapman: A Fool Such As Us
“You’re an American, you know what to do.” A simple phrase uttered by his mentor, Ernest Withers, describes Bill Chapman’s photography more concisely than the extensive commentary produced over the years about the man and his work. At a very early age, Chapman’s interests in politics, civil rights, baseball, and music were tied to a passion for photography. Over the years he has explored each topic -- and much more -- through both film and digital photography.
Chapman has traveled throughout America to discover and redefine “the cruel radiance of what is,” as Walker Evans phrased it. Chapman’s photographs have been described as “sardonic but good natured.” America has experienced a daunting number of peaks and valleys in the treatment of its citizenry and the way it represents itself within its own borders. Chapman set out to both befriend and embrace that America through his photographs.
A Fool Such As Us is a selection of 9 color photographs from a series of Elvis and Elvis culture made over a four year period from 2014 – 2018. From Elvis socks, to Elvis impersonators, to Elvis’ gravesite, to Elvis’ home in Graceland, to his faithful, Chapman takes us inside the world of Elvis and his followers, a generation now in their 70s. “When I was in the 6th grade, Elvis joined the army. We were devastated and I memorized his dog tag number: 53310761.”- AK
Photographs from Chapman’s travels around America, his depiction of Elvis Presley as a fetish commodity, an ongoing project photographing the surviving members of the Negro League and Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL, and images from Chapman’s association with the Harlem Gospel Choir are examples of his photography.
Bill Chapman’s work has been exhibited at The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Gallery Kayafas, Harvard University, The Griffin Museum and many other locations. His images have been published in a wide variety of books, including “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,” by Howard Bryant (Beacon Press, 2003), “Bluff City,” by Preston Lauterbach (Norton), “Negro League Baseball”” by Ernest C. Withers (Harry N. Abrams, 2005), and “Rickwood Field: A Century in America’s Oldest Ballpark,” by Allen Barra (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010). Many publications have also featured Chapman’s images including: The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Preservation Magazine, University of Budapest, Art New England, Baseball America and ESPN Magazine.
Kevin Bennett Moore: Safe In My Garden
We are pleased to be showing, Safe In My Garden, Kevin Bennett Moore’s first gallery exhibit. Moore is a recent graduate with Departmental Honors from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (BFA '20.) His self-portrait based projects largely discuss queerness through utilizing the past to reflect upon contemporary culture and politics. Moore is influenced greatly by films of the 1950s & 60s, gender performativity, and ideals of mid-century American culture.
“Influenced by my own queer experience and ideals of mid-century American culture, the images in this work investigate a familiarly domestic environment that also alludes to the enigmatic. Creating vignettes of this space and time allows for the images to exist in perceived reality while simultaneously remaining fictitious.
Film is a type of cultural performance. Films, alongside vernacular media of the 1950s’ and 60’s, influence much of my work, which I acutely reference to investigate the ways in which our culture may or may not have shifted in the last half century. Through this work, I’m exploring masculinity as a way to question cultural ideas surrounding gender, more specifically the performance of masculinity in juxtaposition to our current political landscape.
Through making work about one’s control of their environment, I am able to create a safe space for narrative to unfold; purposely diverting from what may be considered conventional representation. The characters become distant protagonists as the environment created allows the viewer to interact as a voyeur. “ KBM 2021
Alcove Gallery: Nicole Buchanan, Strange Fruit
Nicole Buchanan is a documentary photographer based in Atlanta, GA and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design where she received a BFA in photography. She utilizes her skills and experiences to explore innovative ways to invoke emotional insight into cultural and political events that shape our world. She believes that art can bring light to hot topics in a way that inspires real change in the world. She uses her photography as a weapon to influence, trick, and even change the minds of others.
This exhibit, Strange Fruit, is images made during the Atlanta protests in 2020. Not as an observer but as a participant, Nicole captures the energy and diversity of the crowd…children to older adults, multiple races…all together making their voices heard trying to bring about change.