Viewing Distance included in 'Back on the Shelf' at Filter Space

Filter Photo is pleased to announce, Back on the Shelf, a photo book exhibition, juried by artist and co-founder of SKYLARK Editions, Paul D’Amato.  

"The photo book has been inseparable from the evolution of photography itself.  Since the invention of the camera, books on photography have accompanied every technical, stylistic, and conceptual iteration of the medium. We can trace this from Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature in 1844, to the latest addition to Photo-Eye Books or, for that matter, to the books on display here at Filter Space. The book is both a celebration of photography’s reproducibility and a refutation of the preciousness of one of kind objects. And, just as photography is the most democratic of all art forms, the book is the perfect vehicle for making photography available to as many people as possible. 

We all own books and they’re all different. The way a book functions, including its binding and structure, can vary as widely as the kind of work contained within it. This show is a celebration of all that. Each book here, in its own way, has a conceptual integrity that is clear from the title to the binding, paper, image quality and text, to the final end-sheet. The result, on display in this exhibition, is a testament to how varied and alive the visual book still is in the face of all things digital and remote."

—Paul D'Amato

Exhibition Dates: February 3rd - March 31st, 2023
Gallery Reception: February 3rd, 6 – 9 PM
Location: Filter Space | 1821 W Hubbard St, Suite 207
Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM

Viewing Distance monograph released in November 2021

VIEWING DISTANCE

BY EVAN HUME

Text by Evan Hume and Lily Brewer

Published by Daylight Books

VD_cover.jpeg

NOVEMBER 2021

Viewing Distance compiles and transforms declassified material from US government archives to examine photography as a tool of the military-industrial complex for reconnaissance, surveillance, and documentation of advanced technologies. While many of the source images for this body of work date back to the middle 20th century, they have only recently been released and much information remains secret. These pictures represent the decades-long time delay from when knowledge comes into being and when it becomes publicly accessible. The Cold War period that much of the material originates from is a significant turning point in photography’s technological development and use for intelligence gathering. The book combines photographs pertaining to the clandestine innovations and operations of that era with contemporary documents and devices, connecting past and present. Lily Brewer, who holds a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Pittsburgh, writes an essay.


BOOK INFO

Paper over Board, 9 x 10 inches

96 pages / 50 Color

ISBN 9781954119031

Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy

Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA

September 25 – December 18, 2021

Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy, features seven artists who explore, co-opt, and challenge bureaucratic systems and structures. They highlight the human impact of bureaucratic institutions, from the professional relationships between artists and arts organizations, to the obscure workings of financial systems, to the violent and deadly consequences wrought by global empires.

To most, art and bureaucracy couldn’t be more distant. The traditional perception of Western art imagines it as a transcendent escape offering beauty, inspiration, and a departure from the mundane. Bureaucracy conjures the opposite reaction, mired by stagnation, inflexibility, and the complexity of large, hierarchical institutions. Take a Number challenges these rigid preconceptions, presenting artists who use the tools of bureaucracy––including archival research, photography, digital technology, and paperwork––and projects that explore bureaucracy’s methodologies and its failures, both banal and catastrophic.

Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy was curated by Blair Murphy, AAC’s curator of exhibitions and features seven local and national artists including:

Sobia Ahmad (Washington, DC)
Sobia Ahmad’s work looks at notions of nationhood, home, and heritage, in an installation that draws on her own family history, including her grandmother’s experience of forced migration during the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan.

Maura Brewer (Los Angeles, CA)
In the film-noir influenced video Private Client Services, artist Maura Brewer learns how to launder money, delving into the intricacies and loopholes of the financial system and highlighting the use of art objects as vehicles to obscure the source of dubiously acquired funds.

Chris Combs (Washington, DC)
In the installation DataWorld 2021, booth #313: Maelstrom Networks, Inc., an array of Chris Combs’ interactive sculptures mimics the increasingly ubiquitous technological surveillance that surrounds us.

Evan Hume (South Bend, IN)
Evan Humes’ series Viewing Distance utilizes declassified material from United States government archives, highlighting photography’s use as a tool for reconnaissance and surveillance and the way these military and intelligence uses shaped the development of photographic technology in the 20th century.

Stephanie Mercedes (Washington, DC)
Stephanie Mercedes explores the relationship between artists and institutions through the lens of artist contracts. These documents introduce legalistic and bureaucratic language into the relationship between artists and organizations, but also make visible pre-existing power dynamics and can be used by artists as a tool to protect their own interests and navigate their relationship to institutions and the art market.

R.L. Martens (Lexington, KY)
R.L. Martens’ Material Witness mines our relationship to waste through idiosyncratic research into the history of a specific stretch of land in Lorton, VA that has housed landfills, brick works, a prison, and, most recently, a mixed-use development project. Through the collection of archival newspaper clippings, contemporary YouTube videos, landfill design literature, and material remnants from the location, Martens unearths a largely hidden history of the site.

Pau S. Pescador (Los Angeles, CA)
An artist and government worker, Pau S. Pescador created the video series PSA based on extensive conversations with other government employees and members of the public. Through a combination of interview clips, animations, and their own first-person narration, Pescador explores the challenges, possibilities, disappointments, and frustrations of building and sustaining a responsive system of governance.


Press Release

Exhibition Catalog

Viewing Distance Published by Daylight Books

I am very excited to share that my first monograph, Viewing Distance, will be published by renowned non-profit publisher Daylight Books in fall of this year. The book is a culmination of many years of research and will feature over 50 images as well as an essay by art historian Lily Brewer. I am fortunate to have the support of Daylight, but as you may know, the expenses of producing a high-quality fine art book require that publishers and artists share the financial responsibilities. To assist with the costs of the production process, we have launched a 30-day Kickstarter campaign with Viewing Distance now available for pre-order along with other offers including limited edition prints. Your support and a successful campaign will help ensure the book is sent to print by May for its scheduled publication this Fall. I hope you will consider contributing to the project if you are able to and share it with others.

Viewing Distance compiles declassified material from US government archives to examine photography as a tool of the military-industrial complex for reconnaissance, surveillance, and documentation of advanced technologies. The book montages layers of time and historical fragments that sit between informational and enigmatic. While we now have unprecedented access to archival materials, so much still remains secret. What we are allowed to know and see is often incomplete and indeterminate, encouraging speculation and critical vision. 

Daylight is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has been dedicated to art publishing for over 15 years. By exploring the documentary mode along with the more conceptual concerns of fine art, Daylight's uniquely collectable publications work to revitalize the relationship between art, photography, and the world at large.


'INFORMATION' now on view at Fotografiska New York

How can photographs provide information at a moment when ideas about truth and power have been disrupted? The 2020 Aperture Summer Open, Information, presents new work by fourteen photographers and lens-based artists who examine globalization, technology, and politics, and the dynamic changes to personal and social identity charted by mass media today. They consider declassified military archives and CIA conspiracy theories, stage encounters with race and memory, present evidence of incarceration and violence, and visualize the physical spaces where digital information is concealed from the public eye. While some artists interrogate the construction of images themselves, others rely on the photograph’s power to cross between dream and dystopia, fact and fable. Together, they broadcast new ways of viewing our present—and our future.

Information is curated by Brendan Embser, managing editor of Aperture magazine, with Farah Al Qasimi, artist; Amanda Hajjar, director of exhibitions at Fotografiska New York; Kristen Lubben, executive director of the Magnum Foundation; and Paul Moakley, editor at large for special projects at TIME.

APERTURE SUMMER OPEN: INFORMATION

Aperture is pleased to announce the participating artists in the 2020 Aperture Summer Open, Information. At a moment when ideas about truth and power have been disrupted, these fourteen artists consider how photography portrays and charts our experiences of technology, politics, and the social landscape, from declassified military archives and CIA conspiracy theories, to encounters with race and memory, to the physical spaces where digital information is concealed from the public eye. Together, they broadcast new ways of viewing our present—and our future.

Javier Alvarez / Gus Aronson / Widline Cadet / Emma Cantor / Yu-Chen Chiu / Ash Garwood / Evan Hume / Seunggu Kim / Joshua Rashaad McFadden / Daniel Mebarek / Kean O’Brien / Florence Omotoyo / Rowan Renee / George Selley

The 2020 Aperture Summer Open is curated by Brendan Embser, managing editor of Aperture magazine, with Farah Al Qasimi, artist; Amanda Hajjar, director of exhibitions at Fotografiska; Kristen Lubben, executive director of the Magnum Foundation; and Paul Moakley, editor at large for special projects at TIME.

The Aperture Summer Open is an annual open-submission exhibition. Selected by a jury of leading editors, curators, and writers, the exhibition seeks to reveal and report on key themes and trends driving contemporary photography. The 2020 Aperture Summer Open is presented by Fotografiska New York. Follow @aperturefnd on Instagram and Twitter for news and updates