Polaroid photographs remind us of childhood birthday parties and
other usually embarrassing events only worthy of inexpensive
documentation. Most people would agree that these photographs
hardly constitute art worthy of space in a museum. These natural
assumptions are challenged by Miranda Lichtenstein’s new
collection of photography at the Hammer Museum.
Lichtenstein’s exhibit, which will be on display until
April 30, tests the implications involved with this medium by using
Polaroids to capture the mysteries and beauty of nature. The
complexity displayed in Lichtenstein’s work explores the
boundaries of the Polaroid method as it blurs the relationship and
the distinctions between photography and painting.
The artist’s recent work is a collection of still life
photographs with painted backgrounds. The images are primarily of
plants and vegetables placed in front of disconnected shadows.
The collection captures the dark, ephemeral spirit of the
natural world as it displaces the flowers in the foreground from
the shadows behind them. The images capture unsettling beauty
conveyed through the sad fate of discarded plant life.
Miranda Lichtenstein’s new collection was largely inspired
by a four-month stay in Giverny, France where she was privileged to
have unrestricted access to Claude Monet’s gardens. Her days
were spent observing the grounds and collecting discarded flowers.
She described Giverny’s scenery as her motivation for this
exhibit.
“It was the proximity to the garden that I responded
to,” she said.
The true genesis for this collection came from a serendipitous
visit to the groundskeeper’s tool shed at Monet’s
gardens. Here Lichtenstein found a clever yet surprisingly
underused method for organizing landscaping equipment. Each tool
had its shadow painted on the wall for ease of organization. But
Lichtenstein observed that the tools were rarely placed on the
correct shadow.
The artist said the failure of this logical system was her
initial inspiration. “The tool shed was a perfect example of
a failed system, which is a theme that runs through a lot of my
work. It’s the craving of a utopian space and it’s
inevitable failure.”
Lichtenstein’s collection also draws inspiration from
early plant photography and 18th century French still life
paintings. The work is specifically reflective of Karl
Blossfedt’s botanical photography and Jean-Simeon
Chardin’s still life paintings.
Lichtenstein’s work moves far beyond a mere reflection of
either Blossfedt or Chardin as it conveys the ambiguities between
its mediums. In combining the painted background with photography,
Lichtenstein succeeds in her aim to create an unclear final
product.
“I wanted to push the relationship, dialogue between
painting and photography,” Lichtenstein said.
The use of Polaroid development was an integral part of the
project for Lichtenstein. Her decision to use this method was due
in large part to the surface quality and immediacy only Polaroid
prints can provide. Lichtenstein embraced Polaroids despite the
fact that they cannot be altered like most photography.
“It is much more immediate; it’s a one-shot
process,” she said.
Another factor in her decision to use Polaroid film was the
small size of its prints.
“I liked the intimacy of the scale; it demands a close
read,” Lichtenstein said.
Indeed, the small size invites close, critical views and it
renewed the debate about Lichtenstein’s synthesis of painting
and photography.
Lichtenstein’s collection moves beyond an isolated study
on the boundaries of Polaroid prints and painting as it invites
discussion about the assumptions of modern photography. The
collection toys with the common perception of photography as
representing only images of reality.
Lichtenstein’s work is photography but it hardly portrays
its subjects in truthful states as one might assume photography
does. This idea seems to be one of the collection’s greater
ironies.
The exhibit fulfills the artist’s ambition to break down
the common perception that photographs are images of absolute
truths. Lichtenstein said one of her goals was to mislead people
into believing that the images are real. One of her aims in the
collection was to discuss the space between fact and fiction in
images.
“This body of work represents my working around the loose
typology of photography,” Lichtenstein said.