Playing the Photogram

Whenever photography undergoes seismic shifts and is forced to reinvent itself, it tends to hark back to one of the oldest photographic procedures: the photogram. One way to explain the current resurgence of the photogram, would be that it leads us to the core of the photographic system. In the photogram light is simultaneously theme and medium, form and content: it is photography reduced to its bare essence as ‘writing (playfully) with light’. However, this ‘retour aux sources’ should by no means be understood as a nostalgic throwback. The current photogram functions as a playground to critically engage with (and against) the transformations that define our cultural and visual environment. Defined by the ever-increasing ease and autonomy by which self-sufficient operating systems create images, the five artists presented in this exhibition are eagerly looking for some kind of (material) resistance, a way of being challenged by a hands-on procedure that leaves room for the disruptive intervention of forces outside of their control. They celebrate light and color, embrace chance, manipulate cameras and scanners, examine the relationship between body, technology, materiality and image-making. In all these experiments, the artists trigger the unruly automatism of the photogram to create an unstable environment where anything can happen.

With many thanks to Jim Ramer (Parsons NY) for the invite and Amy for the acceptance!