Reimaging Likeness and Landscape
curated by Joni Sternbach
March 31st, 2022—July 1st, 2022
OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, March 31st, 6—8pm
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION moderated by Joni Sternbach, Friday, April 1st, 5pm
RSVP here
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 2 PM—6 PM. Admission is free. Viewing is by appointment only.
Myra Greene, Untitled (Ref. #54) from Character Recognition, 2006-2007 Black glass ambrotype 4”x 3”. Image courtesy of the artist and PATRON Gallery, Chicago
Penumbra Foundation is pleased to present Wet Plate: Reimaging Likeness and Landscape, a group exhibition curated by Joni Sternbach, showcasing the work of artists Lisa di Donato, Vivian Galban, Myra Greene, Galina Kurlat, Vanessa Marsh and Lindsey Ross.
As photography continues to evolve from explicit renderings to the imagined and undepicted, new representations of landscapes and human figures emerge. The collodion process, invented in 1851, is this exhibition's connecting thread. The selected works reveal the different ways in which contemporary artists expand and/or challenge the pictorial conventions, history, materiality and narrative possibilities of wet plate photography.
Identity, seen through self-portraiture in Myra Greene’s work, uses process to examine how we look at the photographed black body. Galina Kurlat manipulates the syrupy liquid of collodion to both draw attention to and to subvert the viewer’s gaze of the female figure. Lisa di Donato’s fantastic landscapes from her Ontic Glow series combine two disparate technologies: the old mass-medium of tintypes with new mass-media imagery found in Google Earth’s 3D ground view. Her imagery is collected on “walks” as a digital tourist through surreal, panoramic industrial sites and remote natural spaces generated by algorithms and are reproduced in tintype’s tangible materiality. Vanessa Marsh’s Further To Fly photograms draw on personal experience and loss as she continues in her practice of creating imagined landscapes. Vivian Galban’s photo sculptures from the series, Valley of the Yosemite, From Rocky Ford (1872) by Eadweard J. Muybridge begin with the notion of repetition and appropriation, exploring the terrain where myths and legends are used to camouflage legacy. And, Lindsey Ross’s ultra large scale ambrotypes from Budapest, Hungary depict historic sites, made palpable by war and human loss.
About the artists
Lisa di Donato, Ontic Glow #10, Tintype, 8” x 10”, 2019.
Lisa di Donato is an artist-photographer based in New York. Working primarily with and through photography, she explores the material nature of image and image as material. Many of the resulting works have undergone interventions or translations, manually, digitally, or both, to become something wholly different from their origin. Architecture, landscape, and artifacts of various natures are my primary sites of investigation. Depicted as being no longer, nor have they become something else, yet, they are part of an endless process that manifests itself in unpredictable forms. She received her B.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Most recently, her tintypes were recreated as a large-scale public installation for the Noorderlicht Festival, Netherlands (2021) and she was Center for Emerging Visual Artists fellowship finalist (2021). Her artwork has been exhibited and published in the U.S. and Europe and she has curated a number of exhibitions.
Vivian Galban, Valley of Yosemite, from Rocky Ford (1872), Gelatin silver print, ambrotype, 2016. Images courtesy of the artist and Rolf Art Gallery, Buenos Aires.
Vivian Galban (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1969) is a photographer and researcher. Her practice centers on the investigation of photography as a means of questioning the supports, processes and contemporary technology applied to artistic creation.
Galban studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires (1993) and completed the Postgraduate for the Conservation and Rehabilitation of Architectural Heritage in the same Institution (1996). She founded the first Interactive Multimedia Development Agency: MediaLab Argentina, Buenos Aires and Mexico City (1996/2012) and the first 3D Staging and Modeling Center in Buenos Aires (1994/1996). In 2005, she participated in the Artist Draft Program residency at Kyoto Art Center, Japan. Her works were selected in the Buenos Aires Photo Award (2015); at the ArtexArte Biennial (2015); and the Metrovías Contemporary Photography contest (2011). Her series ”Between heaven and earth” was presented at the XVII Biennial of Visual Arts in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (2010), and she has been featured in national and international fairs, including arteBA, Argentina (2016), Lima Photo, Peru (2012/2017), ArtBo, Colombia (2013) and Zona Maco, Mexico (2013/2014). She has held workshops and seminars in Argentina and Uruguay and currently directs the academic class of “Aesthetics, Art and Contemporary Culture” at the Institute of Photographic Art and Audiovisual Techniques of the National University of Avellaneda, Buenos Aires. Her solo exhibitions include “Valley of the Yosemite, from the Rocky Ford, 1872” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (MACBA) curated by Teresa Riccardi (2016); Lima Photo with Rolf Art (2016); “We do not know what a body can”, Rolf Art curated by Valería Gonzalez (2014); and “Chroma – exterior night/interior day” Zicarelllo, Galbán curated by Graciela Taquini at the Recoleta Cultural Center, Buenos Aires (2015).
Galina Kurlat, SOMA, tintype
Galina Kurlat (b. 1981, Russia) is a photographic artist living in Brooklyn, NY; she earned her BFA in Media Arts from Pratt Institute. Kurlat creates a visual relationship between herself and her subject by embracing the imperfections and possibilities of antiquated photographic processes. Her works undulate between the recognizable and the ephemeral. By accepting the chance and chaos inherent in photographic materials, Kurlat challenges photography as a. historically representational medium.
Kurlat’s work has been exhibited in Finland, South Korea, India, Scotland,France, and the US. Her photographs are held in a number of public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, and the Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX.
Vanessa Marsh (b. Seattle, Washington, 1978) She earned a BA from Western Washington University in 2001 an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2004. Marsh has exhibited across the United States, including at the SFO Museum; the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; the New Museum of Los Gatos; the Richard L. Nelson Gallery at UC Davis; the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; the Sun Valley Center for the Arts; Camera Club of New York; and Schilt Publishing and Gallery, Amsterdam. She was a Critical Mass Finalist, Top 50, Photolucida, in 2018 and has been awarded fellowships at the Headlands Center for the Arts (2004), the MacDowell Colony (2007), and Kala Art Institute (2011). She was an artist in residence at the Jentel Foundation in Wyoming in 2018, and at San Francisco’s Rayko Photo Center in 2014. Her work can be found in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the San Jose Museum of Art.
Vanessa Marsh, from Further to Fly, Tintypes
Lindsey Ross, Jungblut, Ambrotype, 32” x 24”
Lindsey Ross is a Santa Barbara-based artist who primarily works with large format photography and the 19th-century process, wet-plate collodion. Ross’s work oscillates between the absolute integrity to the physical reality and visual proof of the fantastical and unseen. She often places the subjects or viewers in the presence of something greater than themselves, whether it be physical scale, a broader chronological context or a universal force. Ross has participated in several artists residencies including Telluride Mountain Film Festival, The Squire Foundation and the Budapest Art Factory.
About the curator
Joni Sternbach is an American artist, photographer, and filmmaker. Sternbach received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and a MA from New York University and International Center of Photography, where she taught for over a decade. She is an advisory board member and founding faculty at Penumbra Foundation in NYC, where she currently teaches. Sternbach’s work is held in many international and public collections including the LACMA, The High Museum, National Portrait Gallery in London, Joslyn Museum, MOCA Jacksonville, Nelson Atkins Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She is the recipient of several grants including NYFA and CAPS and Santo Foundation.
She is represented in Los Angeles by Von Lintel Gallery, in London by Black Box Projects, in Cornwall by Circle Contemporary, and in East Hampton, NY by Arc Fine Art.
-
Kindly review and follow NY State COVID policies:
*All visitors age 12 and up are required to be fully vaccinated.
*All visitors age 2 and up are required to be masked for the duration of their visit.
Upon making your appointment or reservation, please send proof of COVID vaccination for all visitors included in your reservation to: lisa@penumbrafoundation.org
*Accepted proof of vaccination: a photograph of your vaccination card or screen capture of your Excelsior Pass.
*Your last vaccination date must be within 6 months of your exhibition appointment.
Those who fail to present proof of vaccination in advance of their visit will not be permitted to enter.
Thank you for your understanding and for keeping Penumbra Foundation safe for all visitors and staff. Please email lisa@penumbrafoundation.org with any questions or concerns
About Penumbra Project Gallery
The 300 square-foot Project Gallery offers emerging and mid-career artists a place to present new work. The exhibitions are developed in conjunction with Penumbra’s editorial or educational programming.
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.