Edited by Simon Baker, Emmanuelle De L'Ecotais, Shoair Mavlian.
"An experimental masterclass … shows how masters from Man Ray and Mondrian to Maya Rochat transformed reality in their laboratory-like darkrooms and studios" –Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian
Shape of Light tells the intertwined stories of photography and abstract art from the early 20th century to the present day, looking at historic works in a variety of mediums from painting and sculpture to montage and kinetic installations. Beginning with the works of cubism and vorticism, it then highlights the key contributions of Bauhaus, constructivist and surrealist artists of the 1920s and 1930s. From there it proceeds to the "subjective photography" of the 1940s and 1950s, exploring the global scope of this movement through works by artists from Latin America and Asia, before considering the impact of photography on abstract expressionism, op art and minimalism in Europe and the US.
From Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz to major contemporary artists such as Barbara Kasten and Thomas Ruff, and culminating in extraordinary new work by Antony Cairns, Maya Rochat and Daisuke Yokota, Shape of Light brings to life the innovations of photographers over this period, showing how they responded and contributed to the development of abstraction.
Nathan Lerner's "Lightbox Experiment 6 (Eggs and String)" (1938) is reproduced from 'Shape of Light.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The Guardian
Carl O'Hagan
Shows how masters from Man Ray and Mondrian to Maya Rochat transformed reality in their laboratory-like darkrooms and studios.
Guardian
Carl O'Hagen
This epic exhibition shows how masters from Man Ray and Mondrian to Maya Rochat transformed reality in their laboratory-like darkrooms and studios.
The Telegraph
Gaby Wood
Shape of Light…aligns photography with abstraction, and asserts quite definitively that nothing has to “have been” in order to become the subject of a photograph.
British Journal of Photography
Marigold Warner
Includes over 300 works by more than 100 artists, making it the first exhibition of this scale to trace abstract art and photography’s parallel development.
Wall Street Journal
Alexandra Wolfe
Showcases the ways in which photographers have manipulated light and materials to make abstract images rather than a reflection of real life.
Flaunt
Comprehensive historical overview of photography's complex relation with abstract art.
Feature Shoot
Sara Rosen
Shape of Light explores the development of photography and abstract art over the past century from the early explorations for a new reality that could be told through the formal properties of the picture plane, to the heights it has continued to achieve as modern and contemporary movements have taken hold, offering its own discourse on the infinite possibilities for abstraction to transcend all boundaries.
CBQ
Courtney Patterson
A walk through the history of photography and its relationship with abstract art.
"Process, planning and making are integral to Barbara Kasten's practice," Shoair Mavlian writes in Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art, "and in her early output the photographic object could be thought of as a record of a performance, a dialogue between the artists, the objects and the hot sensitive paper." Pictured here is "Photogenic Painting, Untitled 74/13" (1974) from Kasten's 1974-77 Photogenic Paintings series, in which the artist lay large sheets of chemically treated paper outdoors, then arranged textiles or her fiberglass sculptures on top of the paper, manipulating the materials to emphasize their three-dimensional qualities. continue to blog
Man Ray's 1930 photograph, "Anatomies," is reproduced from Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art, co-published by D.A.P. and Tate to accompany the major survey currently on view in London. "André Breton saw Man Ray as 'the man with the magic lantern head,' who invented an automatic form of writing, photographed the domain of the shadows, spirits, 'ghosts,' 'the unreality contained within reality itself,'" Emmanelle de l'Ecotais writes of the artist's related rayographs. "'The forms are dispossessed of the meaning of the object and play off themselves by the simple contact or chance or a premeditation of an intellectual or mysterious order.' This was how Man Ray became the surrealist photographer par excellence." continue to blog
Maya Rochat's "Meta Love" (2018) is reproduced from Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art, co-published by D.A.P. and Tate. Essayist Emma Lewis describes Rochat's process: "She begins each site-specific work with her own photographs—lately of rock or crystal formations, water and so forth—which she then subjects to extreme manipulation: spattering and spraying with substances like soap, bleach, glue or paint, on a surface or support that might be paper, or aluminum, or an overhead projector slide (in her performances she interferes with the image as it is thrown). Nothing is predetermined: Rochat approaches the photograph as a source of potential to unlock, using the tools at her disposal to see what emerges organically." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8.75 x 8.75 in. / 224 pgs / 180 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $35.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $47.5 ISBN: 9781942884316 PUBLISHER: D.A.P./Tate AVAILABLE: 6/12/2018 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Shape of Light 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art
Published by D.A.P./Tate. Edited by Simon Baker, Emmanuelle De L'Ecotais, Shoair Mavlian.
"An experimental masterclass … shows how masters from Man Ray and Mondrian to Maya Rochat transformed reality in their laboratory-like darkrooms and studios" –Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian
Shape of Light tells the intertwined stories of photography and abstract art from the early 20th century to the present day, looking at historic works in a variety of mediums from painting and sculpture to montage and kinetic installations. Beginning with the works of cubism and vorticism, it then highlights the key contributions of Bauhaus, constructivist and surrealist artists of the 1920s and 1930s. From there it proceeds to the "subjective photography" of the 1940s and 1950s, exploring the global scope of this movement through works by artists from Latin America and Asia, before considering the impact of photography on abstract expressionism, op art and minimalism in Europe and the US.
From Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz to major contemporary artists such as Barbara Kasten and Thomas Ruff, and culminating in extraordinary new work by Antony Cairns, Maya Rochat and Daisuke Yokota, Shape of Light brings to life the innovations of photographers over this period, showing how they responded and contributed to the development of abstraction.
