PHIL CHANG: PROCESS, OBJECT, RESIDUE
March 9th, 2024 - May 3rd, 2024 Gallery hours Monday - Friday, 2 - 6pm
Opening reception: Saturday, March 9th, 4-6PM
AIPAD unveilings: April 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th at 2PM
media release
Press: ArtSeen, Brooklyn Rail, April 2024 | Read the article here.
Image © Phil Chang. Courtesy of the artist.
Penumbra Foundation is pleased to present Process, Object, Residue, a solo exhibition by artist Phil Chang.
Process, Object, Residue reframes the artist’s previous presentation of the project, in which unfixed prints were created in the privacy of the artist’s studio and presented in public at a gallery, where they slowly faded over time in the ambient light necessary to view them.
In this exhibition, a new photographic print will be created each day, by contact printing a negative onto expired Kodak Kodabrome paper within the gallery from 2 PM to 6 PM, coinciding with the gallery’s operating hours. These long exposures will be executed in a manner consistent with Chang’s private studio practice: using an inexpensive desk lamp, on an ordinary table, within a standard room filled with ambient light. By using readily available, low-tech tools, this process challenges photographic standards, and questions the economic hierarchies inherent to the art world.
Process, Object, Residue will incorporate a public display of the artist’s personal documents related to previous presentations of the work, including research materials, exhibition proposals, installation layouts, and press reviews. These documents make hidden aspects of other labor visible, further considering the economic implications of artistic production and the value assigned to stages of the creative process.
Prints made during the exhibition will be placed in a light-tight box to halt further exposure of the silver halide that constitutes the light sensitivity of the photographic paper that Chang uses. These works will be stored until the closing of the exhibition, and then assembled into a unique artist book. Unfixed images in the book will slowly fade under ambient light, disappearing into the reddish-brown monochrome of the paper, inviting viewers to reflect on the ephemerality of images and the shifting nature of their worth.
The exhibition will run through May 3rd, 2024. As an extension of the exhibition, Chang will unveil an unfixed print each day at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) fair from April 25th to April 28th.
Four Over One by Phil Chang
Image © Phil Chang. Courtesy of the artist.
”I wanted to do something where the structural procedures, the way of making the photograph itself, could address the recession. I started by using an archival book scanner: I laid out a sheet of expired photographic paper so that it was exposed to the light of the scanner, which in turn transformed the surface of the paper as it registered the light. It’s really important to me to create a digital image that renders the paper useless—the zero-sum process mimics capitalist cycles of built-in obsolescence.” Source: artforum.
Title: Four Over One
Publisher: Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Publication Date: July, 2010
About the artist
Phil Chang (b. 1974, Elkhart, IN) received his MFA from The California Institute of the Arts and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. Solo exhibitions include The Fulcrum (2023), M+B (2022, 2017, and 2014), The Suburban (2019), Praz-Delavallade (2015), The California Museum of Photography (2015), and LAXART (2012). Chang’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the Getty Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Eastman Museum, and Transformer Station. His work has been written about in Artforum, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, Artforum.com, nonsite.org and has appeared in Aperture, Blind Spot, Photography Is Magic, and The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Chang’s publications include Four Over One, an artist’s book published by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with Jonathan Maghen. Chang’s academic appointments include California State University, Bakersfield, the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, Otis College of Art & Design, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Phil Chang lives and works in Los Angeles. For more information, visit https://www.philchang.com/
Process, Object, Residue was organized by Phil Chang and Leandro Villaro. Programs Coordinator: Lisa di Donato. Text Editor: Liz Sales. Production: Vishnu Gangaran. Documentation: Bruno Sorrentino Jansen
Acknowledgments
Penumbra's Exhibition Space is supported in part by the Joy of Giving Something.
Penumbra Foundation’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
About Penumbra’s Exhibition Space
Penumbra’s Exhibition Space is a new gallery dedicated to presenting work that advances historic and alternative photographic processes in ways that are as conceptually and socially relevant as they are materially driven. The goal of this space is to foster conversations about the role of photography in contemporary society through curated exhibitions and collaborations.
About Penumbra Foundation
Penumbra Foundation is a non-profit organization that brings together the Art and Science of Photography through education, research, outreach, public and residency programs. Its goal is to be a comprehensive resource for photographers at any level, artists, students, professionals, historians, researchers, conservators and curators. Penumbra specializes in advancing the use of historic and alternative photographic technologies for contemporary image-making.