Art Review - Faking It at the Metropolitan Museum

Art Review - Faking It at the Metropolitan Museum

I was really looking forward to this exhibit. Whenever I see photography, I always have a tendency to closely inspect the image for signs of retouching. I usually can spot a line not matching up or pixel distortion from the use of too much patch tool. Or some other strange pixel artification. But sometimes, everything is perfectly seamless and I am so impressed. Not because I want to catch errors, but because retouching and tweaking photos is an absolute necessity and it is required in everyone’s work whether it’s analogue, digital or video. So, to see a compelling image that is perfectly retouched and flawless, that, to me, is the height of enjoyability.

As much as I enjoy the functionality of retouching/manipulation/doctoring, whatever you want to call it, I equally am intrigued by the creativity that spawns from modern technologies and photo software. Sometimes my intrigue stops short when I don’t particularly like the result of that creativity. For instance, it’s taken me years to get used to HDR effects. I’m just not a huge fan. And I’m seeing HDR in every movie poster, every liquor advertisement, even food photography. Gasp! But sometimes, with other effects and tools, I wonder simply, hey, why didn’t I think of that, that’s pretty damn cool.

Anyway. I was looking forward to this exhibit so much that I went back the next day because I wanted to see it all over again. That’s how nerdy I can be about retouching and photography. I think the Met Museum knew I was moving to New York City this fall and planned this exhibit as my homecoming. Thank you Met! How thoughtful of you. To show my appreciation, I nudged the sleepy, amateur writer in me and jotted down some observations about a few pieces that stood out to me. Oh, and I’ll be back in over the next few months to see it all again and again. To my photo friends, when you visit NYC over the holidays, plan a day to see this exhibit.

The current photography exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, unravels and exposes the history and mystery of the manipulated photograph. From daguerreotypes to digital prints, viewers see how photographers alter their art. Modern photography easily has a reputation for being doctored, but as the exhibit analyzes, primitive photography involved manipulation in many different forms. Post photography manipulation has always been and always will be a sub context of the camera obscura. 

The opening photographs in the exhibit show photography in its infancy and the challenges pioneer photographers faced simply by the equipment available at the time. Carleton E. Watkins’ Cape Horn, Columbia River, 1867 is displayed as two prints side by side. One photograph shows a serene landscape with cliffs, a river and a white sky, commonly referred to as “blown out” meaning there is no detail in the area of the print. The second photograph is the final print, with a toned sky and fluffy clouds. At the time, the technology wasn’t invented yet for the photographer to record the light bouncing off the dark landscape as well as record the bright light of the sky. Watkins created the final seamless image by combining two negatives - one exposed for the landscape and one exposed for the sky. To create what he saw in reality, out of necessity and with precise craftsmanship, he manipulated the image.

Other works in the exhibit show intentional bias by the photographer by using multiple prints of individual objects or people. Or in the case of Union Army Officer, 1861-1865, painting in new details. The final image with all the objects and people are placed together, creating a new scene or narrative. The original photograph Union Army Officer, 1861-1865, by an unknown photographer, consists of a uniformed soldier standing on a decorative rug with his hand and hat resting on a table covered in a lace tablecloth in a non-descript studio. The final image is the same soldier in the same pose, but is hand-painted with bright hues and realistic skin tones. But the photographer didn’t stop there. The officer is revealed in a new setting – a pristine countryside, complete with an encampment of tents and soldiers in the distance. His new surroundings are romanticized and idyllic and cast an entirely new response to his stature. This work stands out because the original print is adhered to the altered print, allowing the viewer to see both before and after. Rather than belonging to a family member as a personal memento, the dual structure of the piece seems fitting as an example for retail purposes, perhaps to advertise painting and hand tinting skills at the studio.

Similar photographs were used as socioeconomic tools and political propaganda to express crafted ideologies to sway the masses. Henrich Hoffman, Hitler’s personal photographer, photographed Hitler with filmmaker Lani Riefenstall at her home with a group of people; including Hitler’s propaganda minister, who is standing next to Riefenstall in the original capture. In the final photograph released to the media, Riefenstall is standing next to shrubbery; the propaganda minister is entirely removed from the image, making his presence invisible to the viewer. While the reason is unknown, the transformation was successful by doctoring the published photograph. 

Other images on display are magazine covers and iconic advertising. Ralph Bartholomew Jr.’s Advertisement for Texaco Inc., 1957, shows a classic car at a filling station and an attendant zipping around the car completing multiple jobs. The attendant is duplicated eight times and has a ghosting effect, while the car is perfectly in focus, shining in tip-top shape. The manipulation is intentionally apparent and recognizable to the viewer. While some images try to disguise the doctoring, in Advertisement for Texaco Inc., 1957, Bartholomew exploits the opportunity to alter the medium to please his paying client.

The exhibit is devoted to early photography and pre-digital imagery, to the mid 1990s, filling an expansive seven rooms, divided in the large, dimly lit gallery. A walk across the hall will take you to a secondary exhibit running concurrently, called After Photoshop: Manipulated Photography in the Digital Age. The viewer will feel the distinct leap that photography as a medium has experienced in the last 30 years. Featuring 25 works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, the digital era artwork explores artists using modern technology to manipulate photography. 

Interestingly, my sister-in-law's portraits are in this exhibit. I could write another blog post about that fun fact, but the short of it is, my sister-in-law, Kiba, is the subject of photographer Kelli Connell's photo project Double Life, and two of her prints are displayed: The Valley and Carnival. 

Anderson Low’s Untitled (Kit the Swordsman) 2009, embodies a graphic, comic book feel, perhaps by using different filters in photo manipulation software. It appears to have been influenced by video game effects, with solid, bold colors and chunky outlines around objects. There is nothing subtle about it. It demands attention as you enter into the gallery.

Tom Friedman’s Untitled, 1998, at first glance appears to be nothing more than a line drawing. Upon closer inspection, the artist created a portrait and stretched the pixels from one edge of the print to the other, forming a series of colored, horizontal lines.

In Matthew Jenson’s The 49 States, 2008-9, Jenson used Google Earth to find the glaring sun in 49 states in America and group them all together. The aesthetic cohesion is the bright sun as well as the size and shape of the prints. The internet is used a sub context to the medium. Jenson incorporated photography by utilizing the accessibility of Google Earth. Without even touching a camera, Jenson created a group of images that is hanging in a photography exhibit in the Met.

The exhibit is up October 11, 2012­ through January 27, 2013 in the Galleries for Drawings, Prints, and Photographs and The Howard Gilman Gallery. The show is sponsored by Adobe Systems Incorporated.

http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/press-room/exhibitions/2012/faking-it