Aaron Siskind and the Painted Wall
In his book, The Making of Fifty Photographs, Ansel Adams explained his concept of the found photograph. He traveled about in a station wagon with a platform on top for his 8 by 10 camera. When he saw a scenic view that formed a balanced composition he would study the light and return when he knew the light would be ideal for a photograph of that setting.
Essentially every photograph is a found photograph because one does not release the shutter until he sees the photograph he wants to make...unless he shoots multiple frames rapidly and then picks and chooses from his contact sheets...but that choosing is still the finding of a photograph.
Adams also said that photography could not be used to make abstract expressionist art.
Aaron Siskind made abstract expressionist photographs from the motifs he found walking about the city. He was a young man in the New York of the late forties and fifties. He was aware of all the latest trends and movements in the arts. At the Black Mountain School he met many of the New York abstract expressionist painters. He also met Harry Callahan there and they became life long friends working together at the Design Institute in Chicago and at the Rhode Island School of Design. Both men endlessly explored the parameters of photography.
Siskind made many photographs of peeling paint and old peeling posters on city walls. From these he made his abstract expressionist photographs. Having found a photograph he too studied the site and considered what the light would be at different times and he would return when he knew that the light would create a balance of tonal values for his black and white photographs. What sets his work apart from other photographers is his ability to make the photograph an autonomous entity. In most photographs one has the sense that the camera has been used to frame a selective vision. We almost always know that there is a world beyond the edges of the format. In Siskind’s work the photograph is the whole story: there is no sense of there being anything beyond what we see nor do we want to look for something other. Each of his works is autonomous. Each of them is a satisfying visual experience.
The work I am presenting here is in the Siskind manner. The difference is that Siskind’s work is in black and white and these are in color...the colors of Oaxaca. Often I have been astounded that two photographers can stand side by side and make photographs of the same thing but that the personal use of a small machine can produce two different results. In addition I want to show you that in these framed segments of insignificant things there is a history of photography and a universality of art and culture common to every corner of the world.
Aaron Siskind | International Center of Photography (icp.org)
VMFA receives more than 8,000 photographs from the Aaron Siskind Foundation - RVAHub
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