OUT of the BOOTH
Photo Enlargements from the
Robert E. Jackson Collection
Our August show is a collaboration of sorts; it features unique enlargements (mounted on bamboo panels) of vintage images from the collection of Robert E. Jackson, whom also created two original works specifically for the show. In a little more than a decade, Jackson has assembled what many consider the foremost collection of vintage American snapshots, a studied activity that culminated in a 2007 exhibition at the National Gallery titled The Art of the American Snapshot 1888-1978. The photographs exhibited in that show provided a comprehensive record of all the nuances, anomalies, visual tricks & standard subjects that comprise what one thinks of as a typical (& in some cases, not so typical) American snapshot.
The same can be said of Jackson’s collection of vintage photobooth images, the single panels & unclipped strips being suggestive of what he considers the photobooth’s ability to meld a sort of unseen photographic technology with one’s personal aesthetic. “The paid professional photographer has been eliminated,” he notes. “In his place is a cramped, curtained booth with a camera at eye level, which allows the subject to take on the role of both observer & observed. Being simultaneously behind the camera & in front of it, so to speak, blurs one’s photographic role, allowing the subject to create a secondary persona---to fully control the visual message about whom they are & how they want to be depicted. The camera as photobooth is thus not only a device used to record identity, but a tool used to recreate & manipulate it.”
Collaborating in the curatorial process with Jackson, 32 pieces have been selected from his collection that exemplify this uncanny, self-expressive quality inherent in photobooth images. The collaboration also extends to the original photo itself, the image as object, and, by extension, to the children, women & men we observe. In a sense, it is they who are being exhibited. First through the act of collecting, secondly through the act of exhibiting & thirdly through the act of looking, we participate in a creative process many miles & years removed from the original moment these photos were taken. But even if we are not the viewers originally intended to look at these faces, it goes without saying that they were intended to be seen. To put it another way, we collaborate in the creation of their self-identity simply by looking at the way they chose to express themselves & by scrutinizing the singular way that a photobooth recorded that act.
Each piece in the show is an 8x10 inch enlargement from an original vintage photograph from Jackson’s collection. Unless otherwise noted, they have been printed in an edition of ten & mounted on Plywerk bamboo panels (shown below). Larger sizes are also available upon request.
Please send inquires or purchase requests to:
(click images & scroll down to enlarge)
July 29th thru August 23rd, 2009
© 2009
Robert E. Jackson ampersand vintage
all rights reserved
