October 29, 2010

Shadow Catchers

Shadow Catchers Exhibition
13 October 2010 - 20 February 2011
V&A London

The essence of photography lies in its seemingly magical ability to fix shadows on light-sensitive surfaces. Normally, this requires a camera. Shadow Catchers, however, presents the work of five international contemporary artists - Floris Neusüss, Pierre Cordier, Susan Derges, Garry Fabian Miller and Adam Fuss - who work without a camera. Instead, they create images on photographic paper by casting shadows and manipulating light, or by chemically treating the surface of the paper.

Images made with a camera imply a documentary role. In contrast, camera-less photographs show what has never really existed. They are also always 'an original' because they are not made from a negative. Encountered as fragments, traces, signs, memories or dreams, they leave room for the imagination, transforming the world of objects into a world of visions.

Shadow catchers: Camera less photography

Floris Neusüss, 'Untitled, (Körperfotogramm), Berlin, 1962', 1962. Collection Chistian Diener, Berlin, © Courtesy of Floris Neusüss