Pure Abstract Photography: the Creative Moment 0968008208, 9780968008201

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PURE ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY THE

CREATIVE

MOMENT

* Life is the miracle. Diversity is what drives it. °

Part of the money from the sale of this book and Portfolio 1

will be used to protect the living flora and fauna of Canada.

PURE ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY THE

CREATIVE

MOMENT

by

THOMAS

REAUME

WINNIPEG,

MANITOBA

CANADA 1995

This book is dedicated to my brother Franklin.

Copyright © Thomas Reaume 1995. Alll rights reserved. A reviewer may quote brief passages. Quotations in this book are used with permission or knowledge. Please notify Tom Reaume of any incorrect or omitted reference or credit. Editorial consulting and back cover photograph by Karen McInnis. Text, design, typesetting, photographs and illustrations by Tom Reaume. Typeface is Palatino. Reproductions are half-tones (150 screen). Printed and bound in Canada by Kromar Printing Ltd.,

Winnipeg, Manitoba.

DISTRIBUTION THOMAS 25

-

BY:

$48

REAUME 303

FURBY

WINNIPEG,

STREET

MANITOBA

CANADA TEL.

price

R3C

(204)

2A8

786-1399

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Reaume, Tom,

1944-

Pure abstract photography ISBN 0-9680082-0-8 1. Reaume, Tom,

1944-

3. Photography, Artistic. TR656.R42

1995

2. Photography, Abstract.

I. Title.

779' .092

C95-920203-X

Contents Preface

4

Introduction

5

Hybrid Vigour

8

Close-up Is Far Away

10

Photographs

13

Light Years Those Fabulous Fifties

28

Photographs

32

Art Affinities

47

Photographs The Photographic Nipple

51 75

A Brief Anthology

78

Exhibitions Technical Data

80

Portfolio

1.

29

80

inside back cover

Preface HE 56 PICTURES IN THIS BOOK are presented as pure abstract photography. They appeared out of The Creative Lo

Moment, ina

relationship between stationary, artificial

lights and a 35 mm SLR camera in motion. This binary relationship reveals a wide range of shapes and textures, largely unimagined and untapped, which can be created at night from the glowing coloured

lights along city streets.

My critical viewpoint throughout this book is from that of an

artist who has created and exhibited pure abstract photographs

throughout his artistic career beginning with a small, solo show in 1982. Consequently, these are not experimental images, nor a sideshow or footnote to my representational photographs, but images which enliven the medium by providing a visual balance in fine art photography.

An explanation of pure abstract photography, compared to a

sense of abstraction, is provided. To do this, an abridged version of

the evolution of abstract photography is traced through the literature from the early 1900s to the present. Also included is a brief, one-page review of the history of artificial lighting. Although some of my photographs bear a passing resemblance

to some static photograms or even photogenics, cameraless images

are not relevant to my situation and deserve little space here.

My research on abstract photography has been ongoing for several years. In 1992I received a travel grant from the Manitoba Arts Council which permitted a few days of pleasant exploration at the

George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

4

Pure Abstract Photography

Introduction N BOLD, UPPER CASE LETTERS, the bulging file for 20th '

I

century art is titled ABSTRACTION. Into this file are

|__| major works of art from painting, sculpture, and drawing. The only art form which does not quite fit, which did not embrace abstraction in its fullest and purest form during this superb century of

creativity, is photography. Some people say the main reason rests with that light-trapping, mechanical black box called a camera. This machine, when held still

or placed on a

tripod, is used almost exclusively in producing a

realistic, documentary style of imagery for which it is plainly suited and was obviously invented. For most photographers this is a truism. Yet the literature is ripe with examples of photographers explaining how to take a realistic picture and what the photographic must look like in order to enrich the art form. Consider these two examples. Henri Cartier-Bresson titled his 1952 book The Decisive Moment,

a phrase still in use and which suggests the essence of photography is

a picture based on an intuitive, intelligent snapshot, or, as CartierBresson described in more artistic terms, "Our task is to perceive

reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is

our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor must we manipulate the results in a darkroom. These

tricks are patently discernible to those who have eyes to see." Edward Weston preached and believed, "The chemico-mechanical nature of photography precludes all manual interference with its essential qualities, and indicates a fully integrated understanding of the aesthetic problem before exposure.” ?

The Creative Moment

5

To balance the thoughts of these two admired photographers and others, I roll in a slightly different philosophy which I call The Creative Moment. It has only one point under the job description for a

camera — To record light. Whether the light enters a camera's lens

after reflecting off a nude body, or more directly from a setting sun or a neon light sign matters not at all to a camera. In my case, artificial

light is the preferred subject matter and an aggressively moving camera replaces the still modus operandi. My philosophy comes to life by creating images which imitate and grow from those created by certain abstract painters. In doing so, pure abstract photography seems to provide a rather disturbing

direction for the medium to take. My style of art differs significantly from what is exhibited in galleries and museums as the photographic. One question remains unanswered. Is it the camera's mechani-

cal limitation, or the limited thinking of photographers and the

gatekeepers of photography which prohibits a pure abstract style from flourishing? This question took form over several years from personal experience. I have never been collected by, nor offered an exhibition at a major or minor photographic gallery. Fortunately, this enhances my status as an artist. As this century draws to a close, I think a little fine art tuning is necessary for the photographic community to become modern and begin adding its share of pure abstract images to the bulging file on

abstract art. This small book of images (the Type Specimen?) is a start. Slowly the needlevalve is turning inward until a screaming pitch is

reached for flight to begin. Photography must break its bond with Teality, shift its centre of gravity and attention, and begin to soar.

6

Pure Abstract Photography

It requires another choice, and that choice moves in The Creative Moment. Franz Marc said it best, "Traditions are lovely things—to create

traditions, that is, not to live off them." *

_ Once Upon A Time, 1989

* Is photography about controlling a machine or controlling the photographer? ® 1. Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Moment (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1952),

unpaginated.

2. Ben Maddow, Edward Weston: His Life and Photographs (New York: An Aperture Book, 1979), p. 256. 3. Franz Marc, Briefe, Aufzeichnungen und Aphorismen, 2 Vols. (Berlin: Cassirer, 1920), Vol. 1, pp. 126-132. In Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics, by Herschel B. Chipp, (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1968), p. 180. Copyright © 1968 The Regents of the University of California. English translators for the original 1914-1915 book are Ernest Mundt and Peter Selz.

The Creative Moment

7

Hybrid Vigour I

| |

N THE LATE 1800s to the early 1900s, soft-focus

Pictorialism was championed as the artistic style among photographic clubs in Europe and America. By the end of

World War I (1914-1918) Precisionism in American culture and photography became the reigning philosophy. Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Weston and others, some of whom began as Pictorialists, switched camps and promoted a straight, clear photographic style ' which eventually won all the wall space.

At this point in its early development I believe photography lost

one of its finest qualities. It lost diversity in its philosophy. The most imitative art form this side of mitosis was forbidden by the ruling body to be imitative, of other art forms. Permission was granted, however, to replicate the objective world and itself endlessly.

Yet it was the ability of some photographers to hybridize their

art with painterly concepts of Futurism, Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, etc.; which improved the photographic by producing a more vigorous offspring. However, in many cases even these hybrids relied on or began with a representational image. To cross-dress in a superficial way like a painting was fine, but to reach the creative level of painters was frowned upon, then and now.

A few superficial episodes did rise like cream to the surface. In one of the earliest and most brief, Alvin Langdon Coburn placed mirrors on a table and photographed the multiple reflections in them from small inanimate objects. His total output of 18 abstract

vortographs was exhibited with some of his paintings in 1917 at the

London Camera Club.? These light and dark vortographs were

8

Pure Abstract Photography

appreciated for their own form and beauty and not as much for their imitative beauty. They generated both praise and hostility from

Coburn's peers. About his vortographs, Coburn wrote, "Why, I ask you earnestly, need we go on making commonplace little exposures of subjects that may be sorted into groups of landscapes, portraits and figure studies? Think of the joy of doing something which it would be impossible to classify, or to tell which was the top and which the bottom!" >

Having made his statement on abstraction in photography, Coburn returned to photographing landscapes and other common

things, even switching from a miniature to a larger format camera.

Pure abstract photography with a camera reaches a creative level traditionalists never imagine. How could they? ?

1. Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), pp. 297 and 418. 2, Mike Weaver, Alvin Langdon Coburn: Symbolist Photographer 1882-1966 (New York: An Aperture Monograph, 1986), p. 68. 3. Ibid., p. 9. Originally published by A.L. Coburn, "The Future of Pictorial Photography,” in Photograms of the Year (1916) p. 23.

The Creative Moment

9

Close-up Is Far Away r WwW

HENEVER I OPEN a comprehensive book on photography I scan the initial entries of the index looking

for the word abstract. Sometimes it isn’t there. When the 8-letter word is listed, it usually leads to a tiny selection of abstract images. Of these, perhaps a half or more are cameraless images by Man Ray, Henry Holmes Smith, Lotte Jacobi, Adam Fuss and others.

Their images do not hold water for me. For those abstract images made with a camera, one common

type which has been ongoing for several decades is the close-up of a found object. Some of the earliest examples are from Paul Strand who gave us Porch Shadows, and Bowls in 1916. Responding to the new American vision of the machine age, Precisionism, “He [Strand] found

his abstractions in the transformation of reality through an acute observation of the fortuitous juxtaposition of formal elements in space and light."?

Aaron Siskind, a chief practitioner of the close-up, photographed walls covered with peeling paint or worn, smeared painted letters. Inspired by the Abstract Expressionists, Siskind's road tar

pictures climaxed his long career in this oeuvre. Siskind spoke about his work as: "sharp all over, ... with a full tonal range, ... made with the light present at the scene, ... using the largest possible camera,

preferably on a tripod, ... the negative is printed by contact to preserve utmost clarity of definition, ... and the look of the finished photograph is pretty well determined by the time the shutter is

clicked..." ? Siskind's words define the photographic.

The close stance of the camera to the object photographed

flattens the perspective and makes us attentive to the form and

10

Pure Abstract Photography

texture. Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Ernst Haas, Cindy Bernard,

Nicholas Dean and others have taken close-ups of found objects. A second popular type of abstract image relies on a constructed work which is then photographed, again usually close-up. James Welling’s Coburg Set? in 1984 is representative, as are the constructed works of Carl Chiarenza, James Casebere, Barbara Kasten, Francis

Bruguiere and others. Within the photographic these close-ups are called abstract because they are all photographers can achieve within its strict man-

date. For a critical viewer this style of imagery provides only a sense

of abstraction because the images have a direct link to reality and are a snapshot of something quite tangible. From my viewpoint these close-up images have as much to do with abstraction as snapshots of a sunset have to do with astronomy. Close-up is in fact far away from pure abstraction as created by painters and myself. And yet most exhil

tions continue to present close-up images as

abstractions. As part of the medium's 150th year celebration in 1989, I know of three shows on abstract photography held in America. At the Zabriskie Gallery in New York City, Abstraction In Photography

displayed the mediums full range in abstraction: 1) the photogram, 2) abstract aspects of non-abstract subjects, and 3) pictures of constructed objects. * About 20 photographers were included.

Evolving Abstraction in Photography at the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City covered about a dozen styles of abstraction

by 27 artists.* The styles mentioned did not admit to pure abstraction, but expressionism and gestural styles were listed. Unfortunately,

neither of the above two shows in New York City produced an

illustrated catalogue.

‘The Creative Moment

ah

Finally, at the Emerson and Anderson Galleries, 26 artists,

mostly New Yorkers, were shown under Abstraction in Contemporary Photography. In the 80-page, illustrated catalogue for this show I did not recognize any images created like mine nor was any mention made of my methodology. Many of the close-up and cameraless images are in colour. From Jerry Saltz's essay in the catalogue, "The

works in this exhibition pose a threat to most conventional definitions of what photography is or should be." * Andy Grundberg challenges the abstractness of the works in part of his essay from the same cata-

logue. (See page 79 in this book for a Grundberg quote.) The selection of some artists for this last show surprised me — Cindy Sherman along with Mike and Doug Starn. But then almost anyone, it seems, can be labelled an abstract photographer as the

doors of the 20th century begin their final swing. With no pure air or

water remaining on the planet, a lack of purity in the arts simply

reflects this daily state of being.

1. Milton W. Brown, "The Three Roads” in Paul Strand: Essays on His Life and Work,

edited by Maren Stange (New York: An Aperture Book, 1990), p. 22. 2. Henry Holmes Smith, "New Figures in a Classic Tradition” in Aaron Siskind: Photographer, edited by Nathan Lyons (Rochester: George Eastman House Monograph Number 5, 1965), p. 15.

3. Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, an illustrated catalogue, Jimmy De Sana, curator, for an exhibition at the Emerson Gallery, Clinton, NY, and the Anderson

Gallery, Richmond, VA, 1989, p. 65.

4. Zabriskie Gallery News Release, 1989, advertising a major exhibition of both historical and contemporary work. The first major New York show of photographic abstraction since the large MoMA show in 1951. No catalogue.

5. Anita Shapolsky Gallery News Release, 1989, advertising a collection of some 50 works by past masters and current leading artists. The exhibition is not a survey but

a selected view of the abstract history from the 1920s to the late 1980s. No catalogue.

6. Jerry Saltz, "The Other Side of Photography’, in Abstraction In Contemporary Photography (Clinton: The Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, and Richmond: The Anderson Gallery, School of the Arts, 1989), pp. 13-14.

12

Pure Abstract Photography

Beyond The Orchard, 1982

13

14

First Vision After Death,

1992

The Last Instalment, 1983

15

16

White Hot,

1984

Ice Cold,

1990

17

18

Trick Or Treat, 1984

Two Forms, 1983

19

20

Along The Boulevard,

1982

Apian Way, 1982

21

Standing Nude, 1994

Seated Nude,

1983

23

Between Rainbows,

1989

25

Upper Left, 1985

© In photographic realism | see no complete resolution of the tensions in the human spirit. *

A Dream,

1983

27

Light Years ~

N THE STAIRS LEADING up to the 20th century, Thomas oO

Edison, a practical man, collaborated with electricity and

—

managed to extinguish the open flame. He made our lives

safer, brighter and faster, but less romantic. "By 1900, electricity was

flowing into nearly 1,500 incandescent lamps arrayed on the narrow front of the Flatiron Building to form America’s first electrically

lighted outdoor advertising sign." * Neon lighting followed. Originally developed in France, "Neon came to America when a visiting American Packard dealer from Los

Angeles named Earle C. Anthony bought two signs in Paris from the Claude Neon factory in the summer of 1923. He paid $1,200 for each

and in 1924 they stopped traffic in downtown Los Angeles." ?

The warm and cool colours would not only illuminate but define city streets, store fronts and shop windows. By mid-century neon and incandescent lights were common in cities throughout

France, the United States, Canada and Japan. Now the conditions were in place. The two dominant forces of science (artificial lights) and art (abstract painting) could be used to

usher pure abstract photography into being. The essence of the

medium of photography, "drawing with light," was now possible as William Fox Talbot the inventor of photography never imagined in 1839.

1. Rudi Stern, The New Let There Be Neon (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1988), p. 16. All rights reserved. 2. Ibid, p. 36. All rights reserved.

28

Pure Abstract Photography

Those Fabulous Fifties |

| F | (“|

ORSOME PHOTOGRAPHIC historians the time around

the 1950s witnessed the medium's zenith of abstraction. Forme, this period was no more than a pause, a comma in

the lengthy sentence of the photographic. To briefly examine this pause, let me backtrack and start with the Bauhaus, founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany. Eugene Prakapas describes the enormous amount of energy and enthusiasm, posing and photographic documentation

which made the Bauhaus legendary. He lists the styles of photography practiced at the Bauhaus: "the extreme close-up, the worm's-eye view, the bird's-eye view, the photogram, solarization, the photomontage, the negative print, pattern and geometry, and asymmetrical, nontraditional composition.” ' No pure abstraction there.

Furthermore, although these ideas (styles) continue to influence

today's photographers, Prakapas concludes, “But probably not a single one of these ideas originated at the Bauhaus." ? Similarly, my style of photography has been tried by many before me, but not with Bauhaus vigour and not throughout an artistic career as I have practiced it. Returning to mid-century, there can be no better place to examine the state of abstraction than at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. In 1947 the Museum hired Edward

Steichen to take over its influential Department of Photography. About Steichen's work Christopher Phillips writes, "He subsequently organized large survey exhibitions treating diverse special topics like

news photography (1949), color photography (1950), and abstraction

‘The Creative Moment

29

in photography (1951)—this last juxtaposing ‘creative’ work with analogous scientific work. Such exhibitions never raised the question

of the artistic status of any branch of photography.” > In 1960 Steichen held a second MoMA exhibition called The Sense of Abstraction in Contemporary Photography. The title is selfexplanatory. Neither of the Steichen shows were about abstract photography as I define it. Rather, they emphasized the photographic and included so-called abstract images by Ansel Adams, Walker Evans,

Aaron Siskind, Gyorgy Kepes and Ray Metzker among others. When Steichen left MoMA, John Szarkowski, a photographer and writer on the photographic, took over the department in 1962.

Phillips continues, "Interestingly, Szarkowski's concern with locating,

photography’s formal properties signalled no incipient move toward abstraction. The formal characteristics he acknowledged were all

modes of photographic description: ...." 4

In The Photographer's Eye, Szarkowski situates the photographic tradition under five interdependent characteristics: the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time and the vantage point.* Pure abstract photography pushes the medium beyond these curious five. The pulse of abstraction around those fabulous fifties registers as a flat line. Mike Weaver's historical overview in the 471-page

catalogue, The Art of Photography: 1839-1989, includes a Chronology by Anne Hammond with 120 dated entries marking the worthy events during the medium’s first 150 years. * Not surprisingly, the Chronology lists no starting date, and no significant exhibition or book on abstraction. The word abstract is not used. The two MoMA shows concerned with abstraction in photography did not produce a ripple in the pond of still photography.

30

Pure Abstract Photography

William Barrett reminds us, using Niels Bohr's Principle of

Complementarity in physics, that, "... the language is perfectly appropriate to the pathos of knowledge in every area in life: we know one thing at the cost of not knowing something else, and it is simply not the case that we can choose to know everything at once.” ” Applying this Principle to the medium of photography, after 150 years we know a

great deal about photography's ability to index

in a documentary style the activities of life on this planet, and the

planet itself from space. Overemphasis of this capability, even in

abstract photography, has not permitted us to know much about that “something else” called pure abstract photography.

* Many believe photography should maintain its position in the art world by doing what it does best ~ capturing a slice of reality. Many also believe creative abstract images should be left to the painters. Hove a good joke. * 1. Eugene J. Prakapas, "Foreword" in Bauhaus Photography (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1985), p. xi. 2. Ibid.

3. Christopher Phillips, “The Judgment Seat of Photography” in The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, edited by Richard Bolton (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1992), p. 32.

4. Ibid., pp. 36-37. Phillips traces the workings of the Department of Photography at

MoMA by examining its several heads and how they defined the photographic, what they selected to exhibit and how, and what they chose not to exhibit, pp. 15-46. 8. John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1964), text unpaginated.

6. Mike Weaver leditor], The Art of Photography: 1839-1989 (New Haven and London:

Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 4-6.

7. William Barrett, Irrational Man:A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, 1958), pp. 38-39.

The Creative Moment

31

* Good photographs happen when we see certain things. Great photographs happen when we see and feel certain things. Pure abstract photographs happen when we abstain from seeing certain things. *

32

Space Dick, 1990

Space Baby, 1982

33

Soft White,

1983

Away From The Forest,

1995

35

36

Flaming Grey, 1983

Death Of Science,

1982

39

* My search is for the ideal photograph. One with a modicum of fire, ice, storm and edge. *

40

The Beginning Of The World, 1983

The Monument,

1994

4

42

Too Much,

1995

Too Little,

1995

* Pure abstract photography is impossible; therefore, it must exist. °

A Secret,

1983

Beyond The Bauhaus,

1990

Art Affinities

| —

|

OVEMENT IS NATURE.

Ona personal level, the way

we walk, run, dance, write and draw is part of our

physical and mental make-up. Together these characteris-

tics define our individuality and part of our humanity.

Moving my camera gives vitality to my imagery in a way still

photography never could. And 20th century art is where I find the proper connective tissue.

In painting, when looking at States of Mind: Those Who Go, an oil

by Umberto Boccioni from 1911, ' one is instantly involved with its implied motion, the result of short angled strokes. This image, along

with the flowing, broken patterns in Swifts: Paths of Movement +

Dynamic Sequences, ? a 1913 oil by Giacomo Balla, clearly traces the

philosophy behind my art back to the Futurists, a vigorous group of Italian writers and painters. About their thinking Joshua Taylor writes, "Motion for the

Futurist painter was not an objective fact to be analyzed, but simply a modern means for embodying a strong personal expression.” * Taylor continues,"They wanted their art to restore to man a sense of daring, an assertive will rather than submissive acceptance,

to break through the insulating shell of self by sheer force if need be. ‘We want to re-enter life,’ they wrote; and to them life meant action.” * Naturally it was the Futurist painter, Giacomo Balla, who created the 1909 oil, The Street Light — Study of Light. § The painting's frenzy of impressionistic colours darting around a dazzling yellow lantern provides oscillations for the eye to follow, and supplies the

high level of emotional excitement I associate with my work.

The Creative Moment

47

Finally, in the early 1950s Jackson Pollock spread the red carpet

to freedom from for pure abstract photographers to follow. He taught all of us how to dance. Frank O'Hara's description of Pollock's action painting technique applies to what I do photographically. "... the artist has

reached a limitless space of air and light in which the spirit can act

freely and with unpremeditated knowledge. His action is immedi-

ately art, not through will, not through esthetic posture, but through a

singleness of purpose which is the result of all the rejected qualifications and found convictions forced upon him by his strange ascent."

. Within photography, a clear replication of the world continues to be

eroded by artists moving away from the photographic. Carlotta

Corpron, almost a peer, created some images in a manner similar to

mine in the 1940s. Several are reproduced in a small book along with

her more conventional photographs. ’ The Light Drawings pleased her because she felt they were more creative than what she saw as

photography around her. One was included in the 1980 exhibition, Light Abstractions, at the University of Missouri at St. Louis along with cameraless and various styles of imagery by nine other artists. * During the 1970s Rick Dingus made energetic marks with a silver pencil over silver prints of ordinary New Mexico landscapes. The photo-drawings allowed Dingus and others to add to their photographs after the fact. “These artists came to see the act of marking as

an effective way to inject an element of human participation into

photographic imagery so as to evoke more directly the primal roots of

art. For them, to make marks on their photographs was a means of returning to the idea that art is a form of incantation." *

48

Pure Abstract Photography

In the 1970s and 1980s Susan Rankaitis helped to redefine the

fragile institutionalized boundaries limiting photography and painting. About Rankaitis's work Marjorie Perloff writes, "... the important artworks of our time no longer present us with images of something else so much as images tantalizing in their power to suggest rather

than designate ...." The No-Focus abstractions by Ralph Eugene Meatyard display

what appears to be dark, inchoate figures merging with a misty grey force. His Light on Water abstractions are generally a mixture of wavy vertical and horizontal streaks of light set against a dark watery

background. " Caroline Feyt produced photographs of ghostly figures with, in her words, "... no history of a face, no glance, no descriptive detail, no touching portrait." In the 1990s more artists than ever are altering both facts and truth in photography by using computers in the so-called postphotography age. ® From whatever one can imagine and create on

the monitor's screen, a print can be made. Straight photographs are digitized and seamlessly combined by the dozens in some productions to make one snapshot-like image or an obviously altered photographic image. With this level of manipulation artists have finally ripped the fabric of the photographic and opened the way for pure abstraction to flourish, with or without a computer.

Pepe

. . . . .

Joshua C. Taylor, Futurism (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1961), p. 51 Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid.,p. 11. Ibid., p. 26.

The Creative Moment

49

6. Frank O'Hara, Jackson Pollock (New York: George Braziller Inc., 1959), pp. 21-22. 7. Martha Sandweiss, Carlotta Corpron: Designer with Light (Austin: University of Texas Press in association with the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 1980). 8. Jean S. Tucker, Light Abstractions, an 87-page catalogue for a show with the same name at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, 1980, p. 79. 9. Van Deren Coke with Diana C. Du Pont, Photography: A Facet of Modernism (New York: Hudson Hill Press in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1986), p. 154. 10. Marjorie Perloff and Merle Schipper, Susan Rankaitis (Gallery Min in association with the Mitsumura Printing Co., 1988), Preface in an unpaginated catalogue. 11. Barbara Tannenbaum [Editor], Ralph Eugene Meatyard: An American Visionary (Ohio: the Akron Art Museum in association with Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 1991). 12. European Photography, Fall 1992, Vol. 13, No. 52, Issue 4, p. 14. 13. Timothy Druckrey, "From Dada to Digital: Montage in the Twentieth Century” (New York: Aperture 136, 1994), pp. 4-7.

r.

Gaining Expression,

1983

© Pure abstract photography reveals the

ephemerality of experience, the luminosity of living, the terror of time, and the grease of gravity. *

50

Pure Abstract Photography

agen at AE PH

Human Sexuality, 1982

tt

52

Beauty Emerging From A Corner, 1982

* Do visitors to an Art Museum wonder if an abstract painting is copied from a photograph? *

My Three Previous Lives, 1982

53

Before,

1990

After, 1992

55

Ambition - side view,

1984

* Pure abstract photography is reality on the rocks, with a twist of lemon.

The Corner,

1983

*

57

Black, Grey And White, 1987

Edge Of Woman,

1982

59

Light Dance No. 3, 1982

Light Dance No. 2, 1982

61

62

African Evening, 1982

Almost Dawn, 1991 63

An Affair Of The Heart, 1989

The Pleasure Of 40°,

1984

65

* The notion of a well-planned, previsualized photograph is suddenly, but not unexpectedly, old-fashioned. *

66

My Conversation With Sue,

1983

Sophisticated Lady, 1983

67

Go In That Direction,

68

1994

The World According To Henry,

1983

69

70

A Curious Light, 1995

A Slight Incline,

1995

71

72

Civilization, 1990

* My creativity contains an element of chance, garnished with a touch of chaos, divided by the difficulty of doing and moulded by the intuition of feeling. *

A Surplus Of E,

1995

73

74

A Short Cut,

1995

The Photographic Nipple ~]

" v

HEN I THINK OF ALL THOSE wave functions filling

|

space, rich in potentials, accumulating more and more

|

possibilities as they fan out, I wonder why we limit our-

selves so quickly to one idea or one structure or one perception, or to the idea that ‘truth’ exists in objective form.” ?

Space is not empty. Scientists are realizing space is as important

to life and the shape of existence as any part we can see. The non-

material aspects of space are as real and necessary for life as are heartbeats. Scientists are thinking of processes, relationships, and fields, all interacting and interconnecting and talking to each other — creating action at a distance. If photography is to reflect these dimensions in the universe,

this non-materialism, this new attitude of perception, then a part of it must move beyond the accumulation of representational pictures,

whether found or staged.

Creative Moments are what I decide to photograph. I like to explore the fields, to find a new relationship with light, one more direct and less defined. I do not wish to be in complete control.

To explain some of my artistic process, a return to the playground is necessary. I want my creativity to be full of surprises,

disequilibrium and motion on the edge of disaster. I want to create a photograph with my arms and hands first, head and eyes second. The shapes of artificial lights are transformed through the

movement of my camera during the actual creating of a picture as the shutter is open and the negative image is being formed on the film.

There are no snapshots reproduced in this book. None of my images

The Creative Moment

75

existed as a found or constructed object which was then reproduced

as a photograph. The Creative Moment exists because I enjoy, like a pianist or a dancer, the movement of my hands through the air and in relation to

the rest of my body. I like the process of drawing with a camera. Dore Ashton provides a thoughtful definition, "The act of drawing is both a way of exploring in order to define what is before one, or where one is, or where one might be, and a way of going beyond."?

Because of the drawing movements involved, a hand-held,

35 mm manual camera is the brush Iuse in creating pure abstractions. The weight and bulky character of a large format camera would

surely make it unresponsive to this artistic process.

Waving a flashlight in front of a camera in a darkened room like Barbara Morgan did for her light drawings during a brief period of

experimentation in 1940 is limiting. Only the many shapes of coloured. lights along city streets are useful in producing the variety of shapes and colours reproduced in this book. Mine is a disturbing kind of photography, not in equilibrium with ordinary vision. I start each image with a fresh innocence out of

a field of unplanned possibilities. Previsualization is anti-creative. I react to the situation. Quickly and without looking through the

viewfinder, a broad flat plane of glowing neon forces me to employ a particular hand dance. Multiple strings of incandescent bulbs allow me to move with different complicated rhythms. Sometimes I pass my

left hand in front of the lens to break the flow of light. Across the street a glowing, curved twig of pink neon attracts me. So I cross the

street. To the light energy already on the exposed frame I add more

light from this pink neon, building up layers of light on a single frame

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Pure Abstract Photography

like painters applying layers of pigment to their canvases. The dance

is continuous. Three hours have passed on the street. My arms and hands are tired. It is time to return home. My methodology reminds me of a small, molten ball of pure, silvery sodium dancing across the water's surface in a beaker. I watch its motion in amazement, not knowing from moment to moment which way it will travel. This lack of clarity in the world excites me. The needle of the compass is spinning wildly. Without a linear

direction to follow the situation is more intense. Stepping into the

darkness, my motion, my process of creativity begins to change the shape of reality. "It is hard to welcome disorder as a full partner in the search for order when we have expended such effort to bar it from the gates." >

After 150 years of sucking on the photographic nipple, the

medium is finally giving up its childhood. A sense of abstraction which has filled the 20th century has finally evolved into The Creative Moment.

© | do not treat light politely. [like to twist light, bend it, stretch and slur it. °

1. Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization From an Orderly Universe (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1992), p. 73. 2. Dore Ashton, "Paul Rotterdam's Drawings" in an illustrated catalogue Paul Zwietnig-Rotterdam: A Drawing Retrospective 1969-1994 (Little Rock: The Arkansas Arts Center, 1995), p. 10. 3. Wheatley, p. 22.

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A Brief Anthology Of course a modernist camera vision can abnegate reality, indulge a desire to manipulate reality, destroy perspective altogether, and discard traditional genre subjects, but the joy of losing all orientation with regard to human reality is ultimately illusory and sterile. It is especially perverse when the camera and film and photographic paper, the most efficient combination in the rendering of realistic surfaces, are used to fulfill a modernist commitment to abstraction. '

Mike Weaver

Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term-selectivity.?

~Berenice Abbott

By many practitioners of photography it is not considered "legitimate" to

create a personal world: they limit the photograph to the documentary, and

seem to be satisfied that it shall remain a document for ever. Human beings

like to think of things in secure and proper places, to which they alone hold

the key; if anyone tampers with the lock, he is a pariah! I have seen it stated

by well-known photographers, and heard it from their own lips, that the

photograph must be exactly the document they have defined, and that nothing else must exist in the medium! ? -Francis Bruguiere

1. Mike Weaver, Alvin Langdon Coburn: Symbolist Photographer 1882-1966 (New York: An Aperture Monograph, 1986), p. 9. 2. Nathan Lyons, [editor], Photographers on Photography: A Critical Anthology

(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall in collaboration with The George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, 1966), p. 21. Originally published in 1951 under the title, "Photography at the Crossroads” in Universal Photo Almanac, pp. 42-47. 3. Ibid., p. 35. Originally published in 1935-'36 under the title, “Creative Photography" in Modern Photography Annual, pp. 9-14.

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Pure Abstract Photography

We are also against the aesthetic slogans “Photography for photography's

sake,” "Photography is pure art,” and, consequently, "Photograph what and how you want.”

We are against the notion—imported from the bourgeois West—of the

“new photography” or "leftist photography.” We are against the aesthetics of abstract, “leftist” photography like Man Ray's, Moholy-Nagy's, etc. ~Anonymous

The spring-tight line between reality and photograph has been stretched

relentlessly, but it has not been broken. These abstractions of nature have not left the world of appearances; for to do so is to break the camera's strongest

point - its authenticity. *

-Minor White

Paying more and more attention to photographs is a great relief to sensibilities tired of, or eager to avoid, the mental exertions demanded by abstract art.

Susan Sontag

What is paradoxical, however, is the extent to which photography has been enlisted as an agent in the questioning of abstraction’s domain. This may be because photography, the most representational of visual media, is ultimately unable to become abstract. Instead, it serves to represent the idea of abstraction, which at the end of the 20th century is all that really matters.”

Andy Grundberg 4, Anonymous, "Program of the October Photo Section” in Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913-1940 by Christopher Phillips [editor], (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with The Aperture Foundation, 1989), p. 284. Translated by John E. Bowlt. Copyright © 1989 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Original publication, "Programma fotosektsii

obedineniia OCTIABR," Izofront. Klassouaia borbana fronte prostranstoennykh iskussto (Moscow / Leningrad, 1931), pp. 149-51.

5. James Baker Hall, Minor White: Rites & Passages (New York: An Aperture Monograph, 1978), p. 10.

6. Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), p. 130. 7. Andy Grundberg, "The Representation of Abstraction/The Abstraction of Repre-

sentation” in Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, 1989, p. 10. An 80-page illustrated catalogue for an exhibition at the Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, and The Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

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79

Solo Exhibitions In Ontario 1982 Guelph Public Library; The University of Waterloo 1983 Preston Public Library; Taylor Gallery, Hamilton; Woodstock Public Art Gallery; Charlotte Gallery, Brantford; University of Guelph 1984

Hamilton Place, Hamilton;

Art Gallery of Windsor (brochure)

1985 Kitchener/Waterloo Art Gallery; Mississauga Public Libraries; Mohawk College Art Gallery, Hamilton; Brampton Public Library and Art Gallery; Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, Toronto 1986 Chatham Art Gallery 1988 The Gallery /Stratford (brochure) 1990 The McIntosh Gallery, London

Technical Data Camera

Film Darkroom Prints

Procedures

Manual, hand-held, 35 mm, SLR with a manual,

50 mm lens. Filters are not used.

ISO 125, black-and-white, advanced once through the camera one frame at a time.

Manual, standard processing procedures for film and prints. Contacts are unnecessary. I do the work.

One negative per silver print, usually full frame,

occasionally some cropping, burning or dodging is

required. Usually not larger than 20 x 26 cm. Keep them simple and manual. The negative is 90%

of the final image. Making a print is quite easy. Computers are not used.

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Pure Abstract Photography

PORTFOLIO

1

Consists of 15, b&w single images created since 1981.

The signed and numbered archival silver prints range in size from 21 x 13 cm to 17 x 26 cm.

Each image is printed from a single 35 mm negative on 40.6 x 50.8 cm fibre paper.

This portfolio is printed by the artist and limited to an edition of 7.

The images and their page numbers are:

Once Upon A Time 7 Beyond The Orchard 13. First Vision After Death 14 Along The Boulevard 20 Space Baby 33 Away From The Forest 35 The Monument 41

For Many Reasons 46 Gaining Expression 50 Human Sexuality 51 African Evening 62 Go In That Direction 68 The World According to Henry 69 A Surplus of E 73 A Short Cut 74

The selling price starts at $20,000.00 (Cdn.) per edition. Portfolio 1 is available from

THOMAS 25

-

REAUME 303

FURBY

WINNIPEG, CANADA TEL.

MANITOBA

= R3C (204)

STREET

2A8 786-1399

Tom Reaume, a Canadian, was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1944. His biology

degree is from the University of Guelph. Presently he is writing and illustrating a book on the wild flora of southern

8-0-7800896-0 NaSI

Manitoba.

5 seta) é

04/04 q9-913-01 we

Printed in Canada