Gallery TWO: roundabout by Max Rada Dada and Jennifer Trausch
Exhibition Artworks
Apr 1, 2011 - May 1, 2011
Join us Saturday, April 30th at 1pm
Artist Talk with Jennifer Trausch and Max Rada Dada
The photographers of "roundabout" will discuss working with the large format polaroid camera and give a demonstration with the reknown camera.
Refreshements will be served from 12:30 - 2pm.
The talk will begin at 1pm. This will be the last chance to view the camera in North Carolina. Drop by anytime 10-5pm on Saturday to take a look or sign up for a photograph.
Gallery TWO:
20 x 24 Camera
One of only five in the world, the 20x24 Polaroid Camera is often sought out for the soft rendering of its dye diffusion transfer film, its one of a kind instant picture, and the fine detail of a 20" x 24" contact print. Developed in 1976, the 20x24 Camera was built to show off the quality of Polaroid's color film in replicating master paintings. Since then it has found ever-changing applications with a wide array of artists and photographers. The camera has a rich history working with artists, including Chuck Close, William Wegman, Mary Ellen Mark, Julian Schnabel, & Magdalena Campos Pons. Because of its vertical format and formidable presence, it has become widely known as a portrait camera, heading to the White House to shoot Bill Clinton, as well as the likes of the Michael Jackson, the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Ali, Andy Warhol, Vivienne Westwood, Leo Castelli, and Lady Gaga.
The 235-pound camera is used primarily in static and controlled circumstances due to its size and the high-powered flashes needed to obtain the focus and detail associated with it. 20x24 Polaroid Prints are revered for their quality and handmade feel, as each print is created through a set of processing rollers similar to printmaking. Only one final print is made in this process, a monoprint. In March of 2008, Polaroid discontinued production of all of its instant films including 20x24 Polaroid Film. John Reuter, founder of 20x24 Holdings, formed the new corporation which purchased the rest of the polaroid film and materials along with the camera. All of the 20x24 cameras are currently still in use, operating on the remaining original stock of film, now owned by 20x24 Holdings. While the original polaroid film will eventually run out, 20x24 Holdings is researching many alternatives and will start to produce replacement emulsions when it is appropriate. The company's mission is to provide the amazing material created by Polaroid as long as it lasts and will provide a high quality alternative when the time is right. In the meantime, access to this technology is still a very rare opportunity, it rarely travels within the US and the opportunity to work with it is a very special situation.
Jennifer Trausch
Jennifer Trausch’s unique use of the 20x24 Camera took it out of its normal studio context and treated it as if this behemoth were a handheld camera. The constraints of the camera and film, most importantly temperature, spurred her to head to the warmth of the South, and the film and camera's reactions to working out in the open are very much an aspect of the work itself. While working this way may sound simple, the refrigerator sized camera requires many precautions when working outside - for example, the camera's built-in processor has many openings that are susceptible to light leaks, so the camera [and it's operator] must be covered with swaths of dark
cloth on hot, sunny southern days. The difficulties and unpredictability of working this way brought serendipity to the work.
Skateland
The idea for "Skateland" began in 2004 on a visit to see my family in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. On this trip, I was introduced to my father's childhood past-time, and now newest hobby - competitive roller skating. This was old school skating, where elaborately costumed partners perform waltzes and tangoes to organ music on four-wheel lace-up roller skates. My father had brought me to the rink to meet some of his friends, and when I stepped into Skateland, I immediately felt an incredible sense of nostalgia; it felt as though not a single thing had changed since the sixties. I first had coffee with Betty, a petite, boisterous black woman from the Bronx who had roller skates embroidered on her sweater, and her partner Ken, a shy, tall, white farmer. When practicing together they were a dynamic, graceful, stunning pair, gliding quietly across the rink in Betty's homemade costumes; this is when I knew I had to record it all. Over the next 2 years I documented Skateland on an 8x10 Camera, on Polaroid films that highlighted the palette of Skateland's fading colors. The body of work speaks to the family of people that practice together everyday to the melancholy sounds of a pipe organ in this dreamlike place.
New Roads
"New Roads" is a loose narrative exploring the nature of the small town American South. The narrative is written as a series of intimate portraits of everyday life: the flurry at the monthly flat foot dance, the worn meeting spot at the general store, the competitive festivities before a twilight raccoon hunt. It contains work from five trips taken over four years time, spent wandering instinctively through the quieter towns of the South with a 20 x 24 Camera producing instant 20" x 24" prints. I spent most of these trips utterly lost, albeit intentionally so, freed to work off impressions and off the subtle details of each found place and interaction. The mammoth 20x24 Camera filtered and heightened each of my experiences of the South, and helped find the underpinnings of these found stories. I chose an atypical way of working with the camera, eschewing control and extreme detail for highly selective focus and long exposures that are loose and gestural. This is a tale of the South told in small details - scraggly branches swallowing a home, eerie floating swamp pollen, shaking dance hall floors, and old revolvers hidden under the counter just in case. These details are fleeting moments experienced on the road, and speak to the very feel of the South in its blindingly heavy humidity, the oppressive nature of its terrain, and the sheer intensity of the people.
Introducing the physicality of this refrigerator-sized camera to the South profoundly altered how I experienced the region and how I interacted with my subjects. The camera looks like an enormous turn-of-the century field camera, and its unique and tactile presence disarms people. The camera helped connect me to my subjects- the instant 20x24" pictures were viewed and shared as we worked, making the process tangible to all those involved. Everyone is aware and actively participating, existing as both subjects and viewers. This interaction moved the project out of the realm of pure documentary into a blending of document and fiction that more clearly tells the nuanced stories of the South.
rada dada
Why does he use the large-format 20 x 24 Polaroid camera?
I love the enormous size of the camera –and for me it is like an old world camera and a gigantic theater prop or stage setting that I can collaborate with in making a performance/event. In addition to the performance/event, the camera captures and documents unique moments instantly in “real time”. The camera and the film have many physical variables that allow me to manipulate the performance/event as well as the image making. I feel the photographs are like capturing a magic show. With no interest in controlling the exact image that digital photography offers; I submit my ideas and concepts to the Polaroid camera with it’s chemistry and physicality, along with letting go of my preconceived ideas of the photographic outcome. As the magic show photographs happen and each photograph is revealed, I build a vocabulary that informs my next image. Whether I am trying to capture a performance trick, a re-enactment of play portrait, an erotic story or a sideshow still life, I feel my creative process with the 20 x 24 Camera and the viewer is constantly unfolding in real time.
In Gallery ONE:
Suburbia Mexicana - by Alejandro Cartagena
