American photographer Ellen Carey has been invited by The Ministry of Culture and to present her large scale Polaroid photo series Crush & Pull.Her work is on view at JHB Gallery, Prismes Sector, booth SP10. The JP Morgan Chase Art Collection “Curators’ Highlights” guide includes 20 of the “must see” photographs and photo-based works at the participating galleries at PARIS PHOTO. This is a special and historic moment for Ellen Carey, who has been pioneering experimental photography since the early 80s.
I’ve interviewed Ellen about her upcoming show and her creative process for the photos.
How and when did you become a photographer?
As a child, I drew. Raised Catholic, stained glass windows brought light and color together. Ellen, my birth name in Irish, Gaelic, Celtic means bringer of light; destiny and fate brought me to photography.
In high school, my parents, again clever and prescient, gave me a Polaroid Super-Shooter. My freshman year in undergraduate school at Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) offered rotations through the different departments, to understand: the materials, the process, the object
Staring blankly at a blank canvas; it stared back, blankly. Painting and drawing resulted in deep sighs of soulful despair. Sculpture looked scary, blowing glass, too hot, ceramics, too messy. The process was a process: of elimination; of sensitivity to materials, multiple exercises in visual thinking; in the big question: “Who am I?” and the search for meaning in life, those existential dilemmas. Fiber arts, I tried eveyhting! All was hopeless. Printmaking — etching, woodcut, silkscreen, lithography — then photography! The artist’s struggle finally ended (temporarily) replaced by: “What is art in photography?"
What type of photography did you first start with?
My “eureka moment” was a “decisive moment”, it came in the form of a single frame, black & white photograph of a small white dog, on a rooftop. I was across the street, looking out the window, pointed to it with my right hand, took the picture, then the dog was gone!
That single frame, that instant changed my life. Cartier-Bresson was right. In photography, the action takes place before your eyes, but you don’t see it until later. Then you can look, and look, and look some more, beginning to “see”; the camera allows a new vision, newer realities.
It was a fascinating experience and continues to be fascinating in so many ways. I love John Szarkowski’s essay “Mirrors and Windows”…..photography opened my eyes, I love everything about it! Still do.
On to different cameras, different genres, different subjects — the trajectory leads from portraits to self-portraits, to figure and figure groups — looking “out there” — exploring size and scale, symmetry and asymmetry, painting the photograph, experimenting with process, exploring materials and meanings. Light, photography’s indexical, is always very important and characteristics related to light, shadow or silhouette; then color.
When did you began moving into abstract photography?
In the late 1980s, I asked a question: “What does an abstract photograph look like?” My projects often begin with a question. I was struggling; it was a compelling challenge, my results soul crushing, a humbling experience.
Then I made one picture, an image without a “picture signs”, no traces of its own “making” — without subject matter, without representation, no punctum or studium. No reference to any thing “out there”. However, it was all about photography — light — it could only be made photographically — process — it was an experiment, a reticulated negative that made an abstract image.
I have worked in a variety of cameras and formats: Polaroid SX-70 and Polaroid PN film; black/white to color; 35mm, medium, and large format. My experimental images see a range of genres and themes; they are one-of-a-kind.
…and how and when did you start using the Polaroid camera?
In 1983, The Polaroid Artists Support Program invited me to work at the Polaroid 20 X 24 Studio. My Neo-Geo, post-psychedelic Self-Portraits (1984-88) were created, followed by my stacked photo-installations Abstractions (1988-95).
My pioneering breakthrough in Polaroid sees my Pull (1996) followed by my Rollback (1997) naming my Polaroid practice Photography Degree Zero (1996-2018). I investigate minimal and abstract images with Polaroid’s instant technology partnered with innovative concepts, often using only light, photography’s indexical, or none, emphasizing zero.
The new “Crush & Pull” series (2018) being exhibited at Pairs PHOTO for the first time combines Polaroid and Photogram, color with experiment, in effect, making a Polaroid Photogram, a new photographic object, for the 21st century
What did using the Polaroid camera change or open up for you?
Questions frequently asked about my work include: ”How is this picture made?” followed by “What is this a picture of?” The first question addresses photography as process. The photographic object often involves an intersection of process and invention, as does the practice of photography itself. In traditional photography, both the process and the invention are “transparent”, mere means to an end. In my work the process becomes the subject.
The second question addresses the conundrum of a photographic image without a picture or a “sign” to read. These two questions challenge our cultural and historically prescribed expectations for this medium to narrate and document, all the while revealing no trace of its own origins; the “zero” in my practice has multiple meanings.
Who are the great photographers that influenced you?
There are many great photographers, as there are singular great photographs. I could look at Man Ray’s Space Writings, Talbot’s Cascading Spruce Needles and Anna Atkins’ section title of Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns, I love her composition and text, floating like water and while not a photographer, I could look at Jackson’s Pollock Mural too!
You have shown your work many times in Paris. How has the reception been to your work and does it differ from the reception in other places?
Paris is a city well-known for centuries and throughout the world as a capital of art and culture — in film, painting, photography, fashion, design, poetry, literature, architecture, philosophy, the culinary arts, music, and that pinnacle of human experience, love, which unites our humanity. Light is photography’s indexical sign — light — and Paris, City of Light.
Please tell us about the creative process in developing the photos for your new work Crush & Pull.
Crush & Pull combines Polaroid and photogram using the Polaroid negative to create new abstract forms and blended hues with experimental approaches and innovative process-driven methods located in: chemistry-laden Polaroid pods and the light-tight color darkroom. Here, Polaroid’s 20th century instant technology meets the wonder of 19th century photograms.
Crush & Pull links my photographic experiments in color with process, minimalism and abstraction, light and its variations, often with zero exposure, uniting my twin practices Struck by Light and Photography Degree Zero for the first time. Crush & Pull bridges ideas from my own photograms, its history and practitioners to ideas in Polaroid, instant technology's history and those practitioners. My project revisits the negative, rich in -- metaphor, object, picture ‘sign’ -- that delivers a whole new approach to picture making, underscored in -- concept, context, content -- with a unique, new photographic object that has never been seen or done before.
The history of the ‘shadow’ in art is cited in photogram, a paper negative (1834) contact printed for its positive (1840). Polaroid 20 X 24 (circa 1980s) makes a large negative transferring it in development to make the positive (www.20X24Studio.com) in a one-step, peel-away process, a large contact print in 60 seconds. The negative-to-positive duality, the foundation in all photography, is similar in photogram and Polaroid processes; I am the only Polaroid artist to keep and exhibit the negatives. In current discourse, the negative is often forgotten, remaining “hidden”, a means to an end, a document, its ‘picture sign’ in portrait, landscape, still life, figure.
![Carey_Polaroid_Studio_[2]](https://www.eyepreferparis.com/.a/6a00d83451b0bd69e2022ad3781465200c-800wi "Carey_Polaroid_Studio_[2]")
Crush & Pull starts with a Polaroid negative, reversing time-honored photogram methods whereby the image ends as a negative. Polaroid’s negative, physically crushed (touching an emulsion’s surface taboo) by me breaks tradition, it becomes both object and the receiver of light. In traditional photograms, an object, placed between light and chemically coated, light sensitive paper, is the referent. After exposure, a silhouetted image, a ghostly shadow of the object outlined in light sees the negative, later contact printed for its positive.
In the color darkroom, where I make my photograms, a “light-tight” environment allows no light, except upon exposure. For Crush & Pull the Polaroid negative, after exposure in the color darkroom, is developed with Polaroid's “pods”. Switching chemistry and purpose of the negative further breaks photography's collective histories; my performance in the black box of the darkroom lets light create on its own terms, presenting Crush & Pull as a Polaroid Photogram* answering my question: “What is a 21st century photograph?”
In your off time, what are the things you most like to do in Paris and your favorite places?
I love everything about Paris, my first visit was in 1976, having come to Paris many, many times since.
I love to walk around the city, going to as many museums, galleries, gardens, little streets, the sky, architecture, and of course, food, design, fashion, people, looking at everything.
But my most favorite part to visit isn’t a place, it is an experience, it is the light. Extraordinary. Beauty. Inspiration.
Paris Photo
November 8-11
Grand Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill 75008
Prismes Sector, booth SP10, floor 1
Métro: Champs-Élysées Clemenceau
https://www.parisphoto.com/en/home/
http://www.jhbgallery.com/m/
Self Portrait
I am so pleased to have Ann Mah as my guest this week at on A Bite of Paris. We went to Le Mistral, her favorite Paris bistro and had their signature dish, aligot, a rich, creamy mix of whipped potatoes and cheese from the Aveyron region.
Click here or link below to watch Ann and I enjoy aligote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiRHIW7Oitw&t=4s
Come experience Eye Prefer Paris live with Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I personally lead. Eye Prefer Paris Tours include many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes, food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks and gardens and much more. In addition to my specialty Marais Tour, I also lead tours of Montmartre, St. Germain, Latin Quarter, in addition to Shopping Tours, Gay Tours, Girlfriend Tours, Food Tours, Flea Market Tours, Paris Highlights Tours, and Chocolate & Pastry tours.
Tours start at 225 euros for up to 3 people, and 75 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you, my insiders, Paris.
Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com
