| | | | | | | | Fernand Léger und Dudley Murphy: Le Ballet Mécanique, 1923
Collection Eye Filmmuseum
Photo: Olivia Kristina Stutz
© Pro Litteris, Zürich, 2019 | | | | | Color Mania | | | | The Material of Color in Photography and Film | | | | | | | 7 September – 24 November, 2019 | | | | Opening: Friday, 6 September, 6pm | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Barbara Kasten: Architectural Site 17, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, August 29, 1988
© Barbara Kasten / Kadel Willborn, Düsseldorf | | | | | | Fotomuseum Winterthur is presenting the exhibition "Color Mania – The Material of Color in Photography and Film". The show exhibits film strips, large-format images and original prints, by which the development and history of color as a material in photography and film are illustrated. Works by contemporary photographers and artists Dunja Evers, Raphael Hefti, Barbara Kasten and Alexandra Navratil demonstrate how historical methods are applied today.
Right from their inception in the nineteenth century, photography and film have been colorful media and art forms, though this is largely unknown to the general public and often overlooked in art historical and academic debates. Color was added to the first photographs, among them daguerreotypes, from 1839 onward and cyanotypes from the 1840s attained their characteristic blue tinge from the chemical reactions of the photographic printing process. Likewise, early cinematic works from the 1890s, such as Loïe Fuller’s dance films, were tinted, toned and hand-colored spectacles.
Since then, a great deal has happened, as in the course of their respective histories photography and film have interacted with one another, while spawning several hundred different color processes. Some of these techniques – including the Autochrome process invented by the Lumière brothers – were developed for photography and subsequently used in film. Others – such as the Gasparcolor process – were initially used in film production and only later applied to photography, marketed, in the case of Gasparcolor, as Cibachrome by the Swiss company Ciba.
"Color Mania" examines the web of connections and processes of exchange between the media of photography and film, shedding light on the material dimensions of photo and film colors and focusing attention on their fascinating abundance. With a variety of original materials and images created with different color processes, the exhibition offers an introduction to the history of color photography and color film, while also giving visitors an aesthetic experience. Such objects as Technicolor originals, hand-colored glass slides and tinted film strips from polar expeditions, which remain for the most part hidden from the public as fragile archival documents, have their own fascinating material aesthetic. | | | | | | | | | MÉTAMORPHOSES DU PAPILLON (Gaston Velle, FR 1904)
© Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé. Credit: Library of Congress
Photo: Barbara Flueckiger | | | | | | Yet "Color Mania" does not just include exhibits related to historical color film and photography. The historical processes enter into a dialogue with works of art by contemporary artists, which demonstrate how these color processes are utilised today and how the material nature of color, as viewed through the prism of technology and cultural theory, is reflected on in current photography and the broader artistic landscape. In this regard, the works by Dunja Evers, Raphael Hefti, Barbara Kasten and Alexandra Navratil amplify certain aspects explored in the exhibition by means of historical documents and objects. The historical realm is connected here to an experimental and reflective approach drawing on a contemporary perspective.
In her series Portraits and Landscapes, German artist Dunja Evers (b. 1963) deals with the fusion of the media of photography, film and painting. Her focus on color and the techniques of film tinting and hand coloring result in monochrome images coated with an albumen glaze using a wet-on-wet technique and mounted on thin aluminum. Upon closer inspection, the color surfaces give way to what seem to be filmic or photographic scenes.
Experiment and coincidence are central to the work of Swiss artist Raphael Hefti (b. 1978), who investigates traditional photographic processes and chemical materials to determine their material properties and aesthetic potential. In the series "Lycopodium", he takes up the photogram as an early photographic practice, enhancing it by adding "witch powder" – spores of the moss species Lycopodium clavatum – to photosensitive paper. The moss is used both for its pyrotechnic qualities and to produce color effects through a chain reaction taking place as it is highly flammable.
Since the 1980s, American artist Barbara Kasten (b. 1936) has constructed multi-layered installations of colored Plexiglas, mirrors, metal and geometric shapes, which she illuminates from various angles and then photographs. Kasten transposes these staged scenarios, which were initially produced in her studio, into urban space. A selection of the resulting photo series Architectural Sites will be shown as part of "Color Mania".
Swiss artist Alexandra Navratil (b. 1978) pursues artistic research projects on media history and the materiality of photography and film, with a special focus on color and coloring techniques. Her work "All That Slides, Strikes, Rises and Falls" moves from an exploration of the intertwining of the film and textile industries to a study of the tinting process. "Split/Hatch/Mutate/Double", her most recent work, is a 16mm double projection especially created for "Color Mania" that focuses on the early film color method of stencil coloring. | | | | | | | | | Dunja Evers: Landschaft (Industrie) Nr. 7, 2000
© Dunja Evers (Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur) | | | | | | "Color Mania", an art and science exhibition, offers an aesthetic experience that allows for different interpretations and approaches that intersect and merge within the exhibition space. More than a purely chronological history of the evolution of color processes portrayed through the historical exhibits and a systematically elaborated timeline, the contemporary works allow visitors to examine the subject from a modern-day perspective, inviting them to re-examine the historical materials in rewind or in a series of flashbacks. An app has also been developed that provides visitors with additional information on the various film color processes.
The exhibition is curated by Nadine Wietlisbach and guest curator Dr. Eva Hielscher and has been developed in collaboration with Prof. Barbara Flueckiger’s research project ERC Advanced Grant FilmColors. Bridging the Gap between Technology and Aesthetics and SNSF Film Colors. Technologies, Cultures, Institutions at the University of Zurich and with support from the SNSF as an Agora project. | | | | | | | | | Alexandra Navratil: All That Slides, Strikes, Rises and Falls, 2015
© Alexandra Navratil / Dan Gunn Gallery, London
Photo: Installation view BolteLang, Zurich © Alexander Hana | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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