The Unfixed Landscape: Meghann Riepenhoff & Matthew Brandt

The Unfixed Landscape: Meghann Riepenhoff & Matthew Brandt Maria L. Kelly Dr. Kellie Jones MA Thesis MA in Modern and Contemporary Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies (MODA) Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University May 7, 2018 Kelly 2 The Exhibition and Historical Relevance The Unfixed Landscape pairs the landscape photography of Meghann Riepenhoff and Matthew Brandt. While the physical practices of these artists vary—one develops cyanotypes while the other works with chromogenic prints—both are intent on engaging with the landscape in unconventional ways. Riepenhoff and Brandt challenge the standard expectations and understanding of what photography is. When the medium gained rapid popularity at the turn of the twentieth century, it was largely due to its reproducibility and accuracy in capturing the subject. These two artists push against these staples of the craft by instead making prints that are wholly unique and partially or completely abstracted. Their embrace of the genre of landscape photography is simultaneously a denial of these expectations. Nevertheless both practices cannot be extricated from the history of art, and photography specifically, that grapple with portrayals of nature. Indeed, it is fruitful to plumb Riepenhoff and Brandt’s work in order to place them within an art historical framework, something that has been not been done in depth until now. There are two key ideas that will be highlighted through a historical framework that provide the foundation necessary for understanding the work within our present day study of the photographs. The motivations for creating the discussed noteworthy artworks from the past carry forward and are the same impetuses that Riepenhoff and Brandt are tapping into today, but with new approaches: they empower organic matter to take a role in depicting itself, thus placing themselves as collaborators with nature, and they introduce a terrain to an audience for whom it is foreign or distant through innovative techniques. Their continuation of this exploration in today’s contemporary digital landscape make their works relevant and worth our consideration. Kelly 3 In the following essay, their artwork will be considered in the context of four historical periods and specific artists active during those periods that directly correlate with the conceptual intentions or physical practice of Riepenhoff and Brandt. The discourse focuses on the rise of cyanotypes during the mid-nineteenth century, nineteenth century Westward expansion landscape photography, the Land Art movement of the late 1960s, and the return to outdated alternative photographic processes and concern for materialism during the late 1960s. Meghann Riepenhoff Meghann Riepenhoff (born 1979, Atlanta, Georgia; lives and works in Bainbridge Island, Washington and San Francisco, California) explores methods of compelling physical yet transient forces to leave a direct mark on her prints, regardless of if those forces are related to the environment or the body. Riepenhoff uses cyanotype prints to incorporate natural elements during the production of the works so that each print is simultaneously a representation and product of the landscape. An earlier example of such a unity between subject and creator is found in Riepenhoff’s artist book, Eluvium (2012), which focuses on breath expelled from the body. The accordion book features twenty four photograms made by exposing light sensitive paper with a layer of sand swirled into different clumps and patterns on it. The designs are brought forth by different types of exhalations of breath. Actions such as sobbing, singing, speaking, or even climaxing while breathing on the sheet of light sensitive paper covered by the granules provide visual records of the movement of the air. The final arrangements of sand indicate how some activities and feelings require more exertion of the body and different exhalations than others. Breathing patterns tend to Kelly 4 go unnoticed, but Riepenhoff succeeds in capturing a fluid moment, much like she does with tides and waves in her Littoral Drift series. Littoral Drift was born from a failed experiment. Riepenhoff had intended to record images of bioluminescent jellyfish using a handmade construction that held pieces of photographic color paper that she could carry into the ocean at night. Unfortunately she arrived at the location during the wrong lunar cycle and was unable to move forward with the project.1 Nevertheless, since she had the materials on hand, she began to dip the cyanotypes in the water and found that they had the capability to uniquely depict the movement of water while also appearing to echo the forms of the surrounding landscape. Thus she began submerging the emulsion coated papers in bodies of water she visited or burying them in the tidal sand of the shore for the waves to lap over. Littoral Drift #451 (Polyptych, Quilcene Bay, WA 04.16.16, Eleven Minutes of Receding Tide) (2016) (fig. 1) exemplifies the style of print that can result from being placed in the sand as the shoreline recedes. Arranged in a row, the five cyanotypes feature a uniform section of dark blue pigment that extends to the top of each paper. This demonstrates that the pages did not encounter many waves at the top portion, and thus illustrates the action of the tide receding. The chemicals of the cyanotype are undisturbed here, which provides for the semblance of a background with the light blue and white swaths of color representing the foreground—much like a photographed body of water that appears lighter than the sky above it or landscape behind it. The curved forms at the bottom of each print are evocative of the waves washing up for the eleven minutes it was exposed, as Meghann Riepenhoff, “Q&A: Meghann Riepenhoff,” interview by Allie Haeusslein, Strange Fire Collective, March 10, 2016, https://www.strangefirecollective.com/qa-meghannriepenhoff/. 1 Kelly 5 dictated in the title. The paper is much more warped at the bottom than the top of each page, and the lightest sections are where the water swirled and pooled the most. The polyptych as a whole evokes both a seascape and the passage of time, which can be read from top to bottom of each print, but also sensibly left to right like a book as the lighter forms shrink in each subsequent print. Beginning with ocean and tidal waters, Riepenhoff has grown her project to explore various states of water. In her Ecotone series, Riepenhoff hangs her light sensitive paper over branches and other surfaces in order to allow precipitation to manipulate the surface of her work. The draping of the prints during exposure also provides for the pieces to become three-dimensional in form as they retain that shape when dry, which can be seen in the diamond form of Ecotone #2 (Bainbridge Island, WA 04.27.16, Draped with Showers) (2016) (fig. 2). The center is raised from the rest of the plane and completely white, which evidences the strength or length of the rain shower as all the cyanotype chemicals have washed away from this area that would have been horizontally exposed to the rain and thus received the most direct contact. The four edges taper downward and depict streaks of water, with one particularly darker than the others; this detail pushes viewers to actively engage with the print as one instinctively imagines the weather conditions and the process of making it; perhaps the wind caused the rain to fall at a particular angle, allowing the darker portion to be less exposed to the runoff. Geoffrey Batchen summarizes this invitation for close looking and its effect as such: “By declining to allow the viewer a passive reception of an elsewhere once seen by someone else, ‘photography’ forces us to think about the activity of seeing taking place in the here and now, thereby confronting us Kelly 6 with our own perceptual agency. These are photographs that turn the act of viewing back onto the viewer.”2 Riepenhoff has experimented with the medium’s interaction with ice and snow, such as in Littoral Drift #424 (Recto/Verso, Tellen Cabin, Sheboygan, WI 01.13-15.16, Buried in Snowpack, Overnight Accumulation of Windpack and Melting Icicles) (2016) (fig. 3). Swaths of orange and teal that do not appear in the majority of the Littoral Drift or Ecotone images are seen here. The dramatic striations of color in some of her works can be attributed to environmental factors, the potential of hydrogen (pH) balance in the water, and temperature shifts. Riepenhoff can also tweak the final print by manipulating how the chemistry is initially applied to the paper, by only coating one side, for example, or maintaining the mixture in two parts on the sheet rather than combining them. The result of the latter approach can be seen in Littoral Drift #05 (Recto/Verso, Rodeo Beach, CA 08.01.13, Two Waves, Dipped) (2013) (fig. 4).3 As made evident by the highly detailed titles, which always feature information about the location and conditions during the making of the print, the final product inextricably links the work to a certain site and time. It is impossible for two cyanotypes to be identical as each piece develops differently. The emphasis on site specificity and irreproducibility is something Riepenhoff also emphasizes in the titles with brief descriptions of the process and the natural elements involved in its creation. Though origins of the visual forms of her prints may be inscrutable to the viewer, the title serves to elucidate the context to its subject and making. Geoffrey Batchen, “‘Photography’: An art of the real,” What Is a Photograph? (New York: DelMonico Books; International Center of Photography, 2013), 51. 3 Meghann Riepenhoff, interview with the author, November 2017. 2 Kelly 7 Anna Atkins and the Rise of the Cyanotype The cyanotype is one of the earliest photographic processes to be developed, dating back to 1842. Sir John Herschel, a British inventor, pioneered the medium when he discovered fixing salt, which provided for the vivid blue prints to be made.4 Cyanotypes are made when a solution of ferric ammonium citrate and red prussiate of potash is applied to paper and then exposed to sunlight for a form to be recorded as an impression.5 It was a popular practice during the mid-nineteenth century as it was simple and inexpensive. Riepenhoff’s series recalls British photographer Anna Atkins’s use of cyanotypes in the nineteenth century. In 1843, Atkins (born 1799, Tonbridge, United Kingdom; died 1871, Halstead, United Kingdom) became the first person to publish a book of illustrations created through photographic means.6 She developed an early proclivity for scientific study in her youth while assisting her father and became a botanist herself in adulthood. Frustrated by a lack of detail in hand-illustrated botanical drawings, Atkins familiarized herself with early photographic techniques and became one of the first amateur photographers. This led her to embrace the cyanotype process, with which she began experimenting after meeting Henry Fox Talbot in 1839.7 Atkins foresaw how photography could impact scientific endeavors in the future since it allowed for a visual veracity that was not achievable through her nature drawings. She explained that “the difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects so minute as many of the Algae, and Conferva, has 4 Boris Friedewald, Women Photographers: From Julia Margaret Cameron to Cindy Sherman (Munich: Prestel, 2014), 16. 5 Ibid., 19. 6 Ibid., 16. 7 He was presenting his light drawings, or cameraless photographs, to the Royal Society in London. Kelly 8 induced me to avail myself of Sir John Herschel’s beautiful process of Cyanotype, to obtain impressions of the plants themselves.”8 Between 1843 and 1854 Atkins created three albums, the first of which was divided into three volumes and more than 400 plates: Photographs of British Algae (1843-54), Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns (1853), and Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns (1854).9 The emphasis on “impressions of the plants themselves” is critical to Atkins, and it is what links Riepenhoff’s practice to hers beyond the employment of a shared medium. Atkins believed that the prints held more truth and connection to the object even if it was an outline of the forms of algae or plants, rather than a drawing that illustrates surface details unseen in the cyanotype because of this direct impression onto the piece.10 It is as if the organic matter has taken it upon itself to depict itself—the subject is actively creating its own image, and thus the artist’s role is reduced because of this direct transference of form to paper. Catherine de Zegher expands on this when she notes that: “Unfolding over 10 years, this process seemed to gradually turn Atkins’s albums to a greater extent into an artistic project that creates ‘the subject,’ as if dissolving the distinction between subject and object with an increasing amount of reciprocity and jouissance—oceanic jouissance. Does the seaweed come to act upon, to impress the artist as much as the the artist does the seaweed, Carol Armstrong, “Cameraless: From Natural Illustrations and Nature Prints to Manual and Photogenic Drawings and Other Botanographs,” in Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature, eds. Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher (New York: The Drawing Center; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 109. 9 Ibid., 102. 10 See figs. 5-6. 8 Kelly 9 since it is now being depicted as evaporating smoke or fleeting galaxies in what seems to have become the unbounded space of blue profundity and endless possibility?”11 Riepenhoff’s and Atkins’s works evidence the tactile connection of their subjects with the paper. Yet in this contact they also form a kind of abstraction. Both the tide and rain, and also the algae and plants, are reduced to blue forms that merely evoke their physical manifestations. It is through the artists’ careful labeling, and not the print itself, that clarity of subject is afforded: Atkins labeled each picture in her publications with the specimen's binomial nomenclature, and Riepenhoff with the time, place, and process. Each photographer places great significance on the subject creating its own image and providing for those vibrant forms to be understood by others who may not be familiar with the subject. Absent these titles, the images are ambiguous forms of color and shape; for example, Atkins’s Zygnema curvatum (1853-1909) (fig. 7) could potentially be mistaken for one of Riepenhoff’s amorphous prints. Nonetheless, other marks, such as imperfections in the prints, like wrinkles or tears, serve as what Carol Armstrong calls “guarantors of its authenticity, its having been in touch with the thing itself.”12 This is an element that is present in Matthew Brandt’s artwork as well. Matthew Brandt Matthew Brandt (born 1982, Los Angeles, California; lives and works in Los Angeles) is known for his bodies of work that engage with physical elements from the depicted subject through the utilization of outdated photographic processes and unusual materials. The medium’s tangible relationship to the subject is the key conceptual element 11 12 Catherine de Zegher, “Introduction,” in Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature, 76. Armstrong, “Cameraless,” Ocean Flowers, 108. Kelly 10 in the majority of his series. For example, Brandt’s Dust series focuses on sites within New York City where buildings once stood that have since been demolished. The images are sourced from the New York Public Archives, from which he produces large-scale negatives. Brandt then travels around the city’s neighborhoods to visit the sites of these buildings and collects dust from the edifice or vacant lot there today. This dust is used as a pigment to produce the final photographic print.13 Thus the residue of the past finds a home within a contemporary print of a disappeared space. For his La Brea series, alternatively, Brandt focuses on more distant history: the prehistoric. The series incorporates the fossil displays at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, as well as tar from the site, which Brandt brings back to his studio. His chosen medium for these pieces is the heliograph, which he described as an appropriately “crude and primitive process” that is “the earliest stable photographic form.”14 Brandt’s multiple series on water exemplify his pursuit to merge environment with print. The Unfixed Landscape features artwork from Brandt's Lakes and Reservoirs and Waterfalls series. For both projects he photographs the eponymous subjects and draws water from their sources to take back to his studio for development. The images in these series range from fairly representational depictions of the landscape to complete abstraction due to the colors blurring the scene or to the complete decomposition of the physical layers of the image. Each chromogenic print is properly developed and fixed, but it “Matthew Brandt: Excavations Press Release,” Yossi Milo Gallery, accessed October 21, 2017, https://www.yossimilo.com/exhibitions/2014_03-matthew_brandt/. 14 Rebecca Bates, “Matthew Brandt’s Photographic Works at Yossi Milo Gallery,” Architectural Digest, February 28, 2014, https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/matthew-brandt-yossi-milo-gallery-new-york. 13 Kelly 11 is subsequently submerged into the source water—an act that significantly alters the development process. The images soak in the the water for days, weeks, or months, according to Brandt’s discretion, which allows for the sediments and bacteria in the water to compromise the photographs’ emulsion, ultimately causing aberrations and distortions both in the clarity of the images and in the color fields. The longer the print remains in the water, the more unstable it becomes, which reflects in the color and surface texture, where evidence of the image’s exposure to biological material can be read in the buckling of the paper and in the bits of embedded debris.15 The resin on the surface of the print is initially disrupted in the soaking process, and once corroded the cyan emulsion layer is affected next, followed by magenta, and finally the yellow layer, which can result in the white of the base of the print showing.16 This is apparent in Klamath Lake, OR 2 (2009) (fig. 8) where the degradation has exposed the white of the paper while other scraps of the image have affixed themselves to the middle and top right of the photograph, thus giving the sensation that one is moving along the railroad track in the foreground at such a speed that the world is splintering. Rather than the incorporated physical subject working in favor of enhancing the photograph, the water actually serves to obscure the portrayal of itself. The Waterfalls pieces are developed in a similar fashion, but onto transparencies in order to be installed as lightboxes.17 Though the impetus for the series is the same as that of the Lakes and Reservoirs works, Brandt became interested in altering the manner in which the prints were exposed to the source water. He wished to match the structure of the Sarah Freeman, “Technical Notes,” in Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, ed. Virginia Heckert (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015), 163. 16 Ibid. 17 See fig. 9. 15 Kelly 12 subject; whereas the photographs of lakes are soaked in a fairly stagnant tray, the Waterfalls transparencies are subjected to a continuously pumping waterfall system.18 In this way, his darkroom technique mimics the landscape he seeks to capture. The use of the lightbox, on the other hand, stems from Brandt’s interest in the idea of working with light as movement. He contends that Lakes and Reservoirs, with the subjects’ tranquil and horizontal qualities, lend themselves to prints, while dynamic waterfalls are better represented in vibrant lightboxes. There is also something about the inherent qualities of a lightbox that recall kitschy advertising campaigns showcasing idyllic locations that resonates with Brandt as well. The failure of such items to adequately translate the experience of being in such a place attests to the futility of the endeavor, whether for personal or commercial ends.19 Carleton Watkins and Westward Expansion Landscape Photography Though the vibrancy of these series may not invite immediate comparison to nineteenth and early twentieth century photography, Brandt’s work is indebted to the western landscape photography of artists like Carleton Watkins, Eadweard J. Muybridge, and William Henry Jackson. These artists, who often accompanied railroad companies to advertise their progress or were commissioned to survey and document a land heretofore largely unexplored, depicted the westward expansion of the nation and its changing landscape. Their photographic prints, developed onsite in wagons that doubled as storage and as portable darkrooms, brought this new terrain to an audience for whom it was foreign. The slow exposure time necessitated by photographic technology at that time, 18 19 Matthew Brandt, interview with the author, November 2017. Ibid. Kelly 13 paired with large format or stereographic cameras, allowed for these scenes to be captured with great clarity and detail. Thus these were images that could be pored over and mined for details. Brandt’s photographs resist a detailed portrayal of the landscape however as the colors and textures of the works often obscure the scene. All of the images are part of sets where a single negative is used as the source for multiple prints. Taking the Dexter Lake photographs as an example (figs. 10-12), each photograph depicts the same view of Dexter Lake— a portion of which is perfectly clear and untouched in Dexter Lake, OR 4 (2010) (fig. 11)—but the color distortions in the other photographs muddy the view, or provide so little comprehension of the scene that one would be dubious it is the same image if not for the title that provides clarification. In order to better highlight this portion of history and link it to Brandt’s series, the work of Carleton Watkins in particular will be examined in this context as the two photographers align in regard to the development of innovative techniques as well as a focus on California and the surrounding areas as locals. Watkins settled in San Francisco, California upon moving from New York around 1850. He produced an enormous amount of photographs during his life; 1,273 prints have been identified as extant from his lifetime, and within this his most depicted subjects are images of the areas of New Almaden, San Francisco, Oregon and the Columbia River, the geysers of Sonoma County, and Yosemite Valley and its surrounding areas.20 Watkins was able to create much of this work without being commissioned to do so, which was unusual at the time and demonstrates his keen interest in his photographic practice. He accompanied some survey excursions as a guest 20 Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011), xiii. Kelly 14 rather than as a hired employee.21 Alternately he would be sponsored by clients to document industries, such as mining or milling, or produce property views. He would take advantage of such commissions to make personal work by utilizing existing travel logistics to transport his materials. It was in terms of equipment that Watkins’ inventive nature truly came into play. In addition to continuously refining the methods of transporting the gear to make the process more efficient, he also sought to expand the parameters of what could be captured in one exposure with his mammoth plate camera. Mammoth plate cameras did not exist prior to Watkins; he had the first one manufactured for his use after he became frustrated by his attempts to create larger scenes and panoramas through the piecing together of multiple negatives.22 The mammoth camera remedied this by exposing plate negatives 18 x 22 inches in size. His first expedition using this equipment was to Yosemite in 1861, a trip which resulted in a body of work that garnered him great attention and praise when it was shown that following year at the Goupil Gallery in New York.23 It also contributed to the implementation of the mandate that Yosemite Valley remain in the public domain in perpetuity after President Lincoln was shown the images in 1863. 24 Thus Watkins’s work not only introduced the terrain to those who had not or could not see the landscape for Naef, “The Great Yosemite Valley and Western Pictures,” in Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, 46. For instance during the summer fieldwork exhibitions of 1865 and 1866 to Yosemite that was organized by the California State Geological Survey. 22 Hult-Lewis, “Becoming a Professional Picture Maker,” in Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, 3. 23 Hult-Lewis and Naef, “South, East, and North of San Francisco Bay,” in Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, 237. He was the only San Francisco artist of that time to have a solo exhibition in New York. 24 Naef, “The Great Yosemite Valley and Western Pictures,” 45. See fig. 13. 21 Kelly 15 themselves, but he also provided context for the land in an official capacity, literally securing the publicness of the common land. It is notable that in a time when much of the photography coming out of the West was commission-based, Watkins was producing a significant amount of landscape views for both professional and personal endeavors. This emphasis on the landscape was what largely set him apart from other photographers of the time.25 He was based in San Francisco and canvassed the surrounding areas in California, as well as to the north and east of state during his photographic endeavors. The resulting body of work conveys the western landscape in a careful and comprehensive way, made by someone who was not simply traveling into the region, but instead familiar with the topography. In addition to the innovative nature shared by the two photographers—Watkins with his manufacture of the mammoth plate camera, and Brandt in his method of developing the prints in water from the pictured source—both similarly choose to focus on locations in the West. For Brandt this is due to his upbringing and a desire to be making work outside, much in the tradition of these classic Western photographers. Brandt’s methods are contemporary evolutions, one might say, of the methods pioneered by Watkins and others. Although he has a truck to assist in carrying the jugs and materials he uses, he often has to cover distances on foot to get the shot he is looking for while on location. Brandt considers the soaking of the prints in the source water as an ode to the wet development process. He suggests that “This idea of early photographers pouring wet chemicals on a plate and waiting for it—and all the time and labor and work involved to get 25 Hult-Lewis and Naef, “South, East, and North of San Francisco Bay,” 237. Kelly 16 these images—I equate similarly to soaking a color photograph in lake water. There’s that idea of wet chemical photography that’s very much what the Lakes and Reservoirs project is about: color c-prints and… [the evolution of] photographic technology.”26 Brandt is therefore operating within the style of classic vistas of nature while photographing on location, yet he seeks to bring the environment to contemporary viewers in a unique way. The union of the landscape with the photograph offers a view that is unachievable in any other format; images in books and online cannot carry a physical trace of the land as these works do. Thus Brandt is not only offering a new perspective with which to see these places, he is also offering a new method of engaging with the area. He is bringing the terrain inside galleries and homes, as does Riepenhoff. A frontier is crossed for the medium and for the beholder. Riepenhoff and Brandt in Light of the Artistic Concerns of the 1960s Land Art and the Concept of Nonsite The act of bringing the earth into a separate space through art recalls practices of the Land Art movement, which formally began in 1968 with the Dwan Gallery exhibition, Earthworks. The show featured works largely by artists who had been engaged with minimalism or with environmental interests arising at the time, such as the reclamation of mined land. The viewer did not necessarily need to be at the location of a physical monument or earthwork to experience it; some artists created works to be seen within gallery or museum spaces that served as Land Art pieces both attached and detached from 26 Brandt, interview with the author, November 2017. Kelly 17 the site. Others simply displayed documentation of a locale to represent the site from afar while the true experience is there within the landscape. With the multitude of opinions and artistic practices informing Land Art, it is Robert Smithson’s concept of site and nonsite that offers us a foundation for Riepenhoff and Brandt’s practices to be considered as extensions of this movement. Smithson was one of the leaders of this movement and co-organizer of the 1968 Earthworks exhibition. Smithson’s artwork in the exhibition, A Nonsite (Franklin, New Jersey) (1968), consisted of an arrangement of five wooden bins filled with limestone fragments from a mineral dump in Franklin Furnace, New Jersey (fig. 14). These boxes were paired with a photograph taken from above the site that depicts the source of the rocks to the viewer.27 Thus the natural elements that are arrayed within the gallery space are given further context and narrative action, as there is implied movement and transportation of the objects from the source to the gallery. Brandt’s photograph of the Great Salt Lake in Utah is a tribute to Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970), arguably Smithson’s most famous earthwork, is subtly discernible as an extension beyond the shoreline in some versions of the print (fig. 15). Brandt feels compelled to make the effort to create artwork in an environment rather than be confined inside a studio day after day, which was a major impetus for beginning the Lakes and Reservoirs series. Brandt explains that he wanted to “actually go out and experience the world. I think Robert Smithson wanted to do that for the viewers—wanted to get people 27 Gilles A. Tiberghien, Land Art (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995), 44. Kelly 18 out of the box. I think that influenced me in thinking a lot about how to make things and just in getting out of the box too.”28 If we consider Smithson’s dialectic of site and nonsite, Riepenhoff and Brandt’s prints become prime examples of carriers of sites, thus proving that they themselves function as nonsites. The dialectic of these two terms is an evolving and amorphous one, thus for the sake of clarity Smithson’s own definitions of the terms will be relied upon to establish this argument. In his 1968 text, “A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites,” he defines nonsite as a “metaphor that one site can represent another site which does not resemble it—thus The Non-Site.”29 This is further expanded upon in Smithson’s “Dialectic of Site and Nonsite” chart and “Range of Convergence” text: Dialectic of Site and Nonsite Site 28 Nonsite 1. Open Limits Closed Limits 2. A Series of Points An Array of Matter 3. Outer Coordinates Inner Coordinates 4. Subtraction Addition 5. Indeterminate Certainty Determinate Uncertainty 6. Scattered Information Contained Information 7. Reflection Mirror 8. Edge Center 9. Some Place (physical) No Place (abstract) 10. Many One Brandt, interview with the author, November 2017. Robert Smithson, “A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites,” in Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, ed. Jack Flam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 364. 29 Kelly 19 Range of Convergence The range of convergence between Site and Nonsite consists of a course of hazards… that belong to both sides of the dialectic at once. Both sides are present and absent at the same time. The land or ground from the Site is placed in the art (Nonsite) rather than the art placed on the ground. The Nonsite is a container within another container—the room…. Two- dimensional and three-dimensional things trade places with each other in the range of convergence. Large scale becomes small. Small scale becomes large. A point on a map expands to the size of the land mass. A land mass contracts into a point. Is the Site a reflection of the Nonsite (mirror), or is it the other way around?30 Both Riepenhoff and Brandt’s works embody the characteristics of the nonsite as outlined above. Drawing from the chart, the photographs are created by traveling to some place (physical) with open limits and subtracting natural elements for the prints. The final products contain information and mirror the site while existing as no place (abstract). Abstraction, both visual and conceptual, is important in our application of the term to the photographic prints by Riepenhoff and Brandt. These prints are sourced from the locations they depict, and the landscape itself has a role in shaping these images—the earth and water are natural collaborators in this way.31 Working in such a fashion with both the landscape and also the forms of photographic media provides for an obscuration of the Smithson, “The Spiral Jetty,” in Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, 152-53. Riepenhoff describes her working in tandem with nature in this way: “The work requires letting the landscape—which is, in some ways, my collaborator—be the driving force.” Riepenhoff, “Q&A”, Strange Fire Collective. 30 31 Kelly 20 subject matter. One must trust that the works on the wall are from the locations that the labels say they are from, as it would be difficult or impossible to confirm this in most of the prints.32 In much the same way, the maps and plans that Smithson used as components in his artworks must be trusted as true representations of a place. He elaborates on the role of these items: “By drawing a diagram, a ground plan of a house, a street plan to the location of a site, or a topographic map, one draws a ‘logical two dimensional picture.’ A ‘logical picture’ differs from natural or realistic picture in that it rarely looks like the thing it stands for. It is a two dimensional analogy or metaphor—A is Z.”33 Smithson’s nonsite artworks are composed of a three-dimensional element, such as rocks or dirt taken from the place, and a two-dimensional component of maps, diagrams, or photographs to illustrate the place. The two facets of the artwork synthesize to create an understanding of the site in a space that is separate—the nonsite. While Smithson is using these two parts in conjunction with one another, the works by Riepenhoff and Brandt occupy the role of both nonsite elements: they are two-dimensional and carry the residue of the sites within themselves. Thus with the prints a portion of the site has been transferred to an interior space, and the photographs serve as complete nonsites. In some of her cyanotypes Riepenhoff moves beyond immersing the sheets in water and strives to more fully incorporate the environment by augmenting the paper with other sediments sourced from the place she is working, which adds a painterly quality to the creation of the images. In explaining the impetus for incorporating this process, Riepenhoff explains that, “We traditionally think of photography as a subtractive medium that takes excerpts from the surrounding world, whereas painting is more additive. Maybe part of the 32 33 This is the case for all of Riepenhoff’s artwork, but only for the most cryptic of Brandt’s. Smithson, “A Provisional Theory,” Collected Writings, 364. Kelly 21 reason I’m adding things to the print, like pouring additional water on or throwing sand at it, is to upset that expectation. The works both hold and shed debris from the landscape, which functions as residue of the physical inscription from each place.”34 Chaos with a Dash of Control All of the works that Brandt and Riepenhoff produce are the results of chance in their development, and as such it is impossible predict what form the final products will take. Much in the same way that chance and decay are inherent elements of Land Art pieces, uncertainty and entropy play critical roles in both artists’ projects. Riepenhoff characterizes her style of work as “chaos with a dash of control.”35 There is a certain amount of planning that she is able to do in advance of making the prints, such as through her selection of site, method, scaling, and exposure. When she actively selects a location, as opposed to coming across a place by happenstance, her decision to work there is informed by what she knows to be true about the nature of the waters. However when onsite she must nonetheless grapple with the elements as they come, which can lead to forgoing the set plans because of an unfavorable tide line or if it is too windy.36 There are also accidents with which she must contend that occur while developing. For example, her coated paper and equipment have been carried out to sea by wind and currents, and while experimenting with her cyanotypes in snow piles overnight she found herself unable to retrieve the prints from the packed ice the next day and had to use a pickaxe and rock salt Riepenhoff, “Q&A”, Strange Fire Collective. Ibid. 36 Riepenhoff, interview with the author, November 2017. 34 35 Kelly 22 to rescue them; in that instance the physical struggle reflected visually in those prints due to how the salt interacted with the chemicals.37 The oversized grid works that Riepenhoff produces, such as Littoral Drift Nearshore #463 (Polyptych, Bainbridge Island, WA 12.01.16, Five Simulated Waves) (2016) (fig. 16) embody the essence of this ongoing negotiation with nature and chance. With these artworks, which sometimes consist of up to sixty separate cyanotypes, Riepenhoff affixes them to a large tarp in one large grid and brings them into the water all at once with the help of an assistant holding the other side. With its size and the individual prints attached it is an especially fraught process to not lose the pieces as she carefully works with the current. In its final form the cyanotypes are transferred from the tarp and pinned together to create what looks to be a vertical body of water on the gallery wall. She is drawn to how these large scale artworks are: ...kind of cinematic. There’s this break, there’s this interruption, and in the big grid like that I start to see them as frames coming together, the composite becomes the whole. I appreciate the chopped up nature of it. Conceptually, I think about it too like this whole project is this dance between chaos and control, the environment and me, it’s collaborative but sometimes it’s a struggle, and I think it’s interesting to try to contain the environment in these little squares. It speaks to the human tendency to chop it up and organize it.38 37 Ibid. Case in point, a torn corner from the process of extricating the prints can be seen in fig. 3. 38 Ibid. Kelly 23 With the sheer size of these multi-part works, it is as if part of the ocean has been translated into the gallery. This sense of “something sublime and bigger than you” is precisely what Riepenhoff hopes to achieve.39 Brandt’s prints are equally variable, since each container of source water provides for different interactions with the photographs depending on what bacteria or sediments may be in the fluid.40 The control Brandt is able to exert over his photographs are the length of time each print soaks, as well as the angle of the tray as it does so, and the temperature of the water.41 He elaborates on the clues and patterns he notices during development and his decision making: The water starts to get a little rank usually, and I noticed that makes it a little bit stronger coloristically….Maybe just the bacteria start to eat quicker or something. There is some control, like if I want it to break down to the yellow layer I can just leave it in a little bit longer. But I try not to give too much of a heavy handedness to it. I try not to dictate too much, because I think part of the fun of the work is seeing what happens—there's no way to control water.42 Post-visualization and Process The inherent flexibility necessary in creating these bodies of work, as well as the willingness to “let go and hope you can revive” the pieces in unexpected situations, as 39 Ibid. Matthew Brandt, interview with the author, November 2017. 41 Doug Bierand, “Photos of Lakes Turn Psychedelic after Soaking in their Waters,” Wired, September 10, 2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/09/matthew-brandt-lakes-andreservoirs/#slide-id -1532301. 42 Ibid. 40 Kelly 24 Riepenhoff puts it, aligns with theories and notions regarding photography surfacing in the late 1960s.43 There were generally two attitudes toward photography at this point in time: one posits that straight photography mirrors a reality that is interpreted illusionistically. The other emphasizes the print itself, where an artist may use a manipulated or cameraless process to create an image of an object so specific that it allows an understanding of what is felt about the world rather than what is seen. Essentially one seeks to make the physical photograph of little notice while the other highlights the medium.44 Two photographers whose practices exemplify these separate veins are Edward Weston and Jerry Uelsmann. Striving to invigorate photographers’ engagement with full scope of photographic development, Uelsmann brought forth his concept of post- visualization in 1967. In the text he begins with a consideration of Weston’s method of working, which falls within the aforementioned approach of straight photography. Weston emphasized the process of pre-visualization in photography, which according to him, encompasses planning and envisioning every detail of a photograph, from texture to proportion, before pressing the button to take the photograph; triggering the shutter is an act that eliminates the possibility for further manipulation or adjustment of the image.45 Uelsmann suggests that such an approach restricts the photographer from discovering new methods and forms of image-making, and thus campaigns for letting “the inner needs of the photographer combine with the specifics of any given photographic event to determine for that moment the most applicable approach; be it straight, contrived, experimental, or 43 Riepenhoff, interview with the author, November 2017. Peter C. Bunnell. “Photography as Printmaking (1969),” in Degrees of Guidance: Essays on Twentieth-Century American Photography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 150. 45 Jerry Uelsmann, “Post-Visualization,” Florida Quarterly, no. I (Summer, 1967), 83. 44 Kelly 25 whatever. Furthermore, let him feel free, at any time during the entire photographic process, to post-visualize.”46 He thus defines post-visualization specifically as “the willingness on the part of the photographer to re-visualize the final image at any point in the entire photographic process.”47 Uelsmann’s argument comes at a time when photography was beginning to embrace outdated photographic processes and emphasize the materiality of prints in the late 1960s and 1970s. This occurred alongside the rise of conceptual art. Conceptual art and photography both began to home in on process as the key element in developing form and meaning in a work.48 While conceptualism adopted the medium of photography for use and broadened the understanding of what a photograph could be in art, it fell short of considering the possibilities of what photography could be as its own standalone medium.49 Artists associated with the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, the Institute of Design in Chicago, and the photography program at the University of California, Los Angeles were recognized for reexamining and promoting alternative processes and handcrafted prints during this time.50 They effectively began pushing against the boundaries of the medium and disrupting the understanding of what a photograph could be.51 Riepenhoff and Brandt align with effort to stretch the standard understanding of photography with their use of unconventional materials, heavy focus on process at all 46 Ibid., 89. Ibid., 87. 48 Batchen, “‘Photography’: An art of the real,” in What Is a Photograph?, 48. 49 Carol Squiers, “What Is a Photograph?” in What Is a Photograph?, 9. 50 Virginia Heckert, Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015), 11. 51 Squiers, “What Is a Photograph?”, 10. 47 Kelly 26 stages of development, and production of unique, tactile prints that disallow the possibility of accurate reproducibility. It is worth noting that many of the art students reconsidering photography’s role during this time in the 1960s became teachers of future generations of artists, including James Welling who, as Brandt’s professor during his time at UCLA, was incredibly influential on the young artist. Brandt credits Welling in letting him loosen up and leading him to consider color photography and the importance of the material of a picture in a new and more technical way.52 Thus the embrace and exploration of alternative processes continues to thrive today for a multitude of reasons, but in no small part due to the influence of those who were exploring the methods of that era and have continued on to mentor students today. Instability and Deterioration Photography began to be employed in the 1960s to document artworks that were not intended to last—performance art pieces and Land Art works in particular. The prints served as the final impression for these transitory artworks. Riepenhoff and Brandt’s works reverse this expectation of artwork perpetuation as their photographs will deteriorate due to process of creating the prints with natural elements. Both artists appreciate that the very nature of their work is that it is going to change and shift over time; there is no final product. Riepenhoff approached conservators and cyanotype experts about what they predict the images will look like over time, but the discussions brought 52 Brandt, interview with the author, November 2017. Kelly 27 back more questions than answers.53 Photography is still a relatively young medium, and with Riepenhoff’s unique practice conservators are unable to anticipate the future appearance of these pieces. She has a spin-off series from Littoral Drift called Continua where she photographs a small detail of a print over time to mark its shifts in appearance; the images emphasize the cyanotypes’ slow evolution, beginning with the first 48 hours of its existence when it goes through the most changes. Tracking this transformation echoes Walter Benjamin’s elaboration of the process of photographic development as the subject growing into the picture.54 Both artists fully embrace the photographs’ transitory essence, and collectors and institutions are made well aware of the fact that the artworks will ultimately, as Riepenhoff puts it, die. Brandt relates the process to Smithson and entropy as inherent to the work: “Things are always changing, and this idea of things constantly moving and states never being quite fixed, I think for me is really fascinating... when you think of photography many people obsess about archivability and all that stuff. The most interesting aspect of photography is that you’re trying so hard to fix it, but it’s never going to be fixed.”55 Interrupting the Digital Landscape The inability to fix, particularly underscored in these works, is what makes these series worthy of notice in the digital age we live in today. As has been reiterated 53 Riepenhoff, interview with the author, November 2017. Walter Benjamin, “Little History of Photography,” in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 2: Part 2 [1931-1934], eds. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 514. 55 Brandt, interview with the author, November 2017. 54 Kelly 28 throughout this essay, Riepenhoff and Brandt are working in the historical photographic tradition of bringing the subject—the landscape—to the viewer in a manner that offers something new and otherwise unachievable through other means of the time: Atkins pioneered photographic representations in books, Watkins provided the first views of new terrains at a large scale to audiences unfamiliar with the West, and Smithson introduced a physical and visual connection between site and nonsite with natural material and maps. Thus Riepenhoff and Brandt expand the notion of photography in the present moment by embedding the landscape into two-dimensional prints that bring a portion of the landscape to the viewer in a way unachievable in digital media and reproductions. There is something lost, some distance inserted, when viewing photographs on a screen. Joanna Sassoon expands upon the experience and puts forth that: Digitising profoundly alters the interactive experience of viewing photographs. In the digital environment, with its focus on the image content, the digitising process in itself serves to enhance the aesthetics of the photographs. With their requirement to be viewable on standard screens, the way we interact with a digital image is entirely different to that with an original photographic object. Using a lupe to magnify detail in an original photograph, for instance, physically draws the viewer into the core materiality of the object to interact with the larger detail under view, while almost touching the object’s surface. Enlarging a digital image involves using a keyboard or mouse while maintaining physical distance from the screen image. Thus, an Kelly 29 intermediate technology used to view a digital surrogate is unable to replicate the interactive nature and process of viewing experienced with a material object.”56 Thus while the internet today provides for immediate and easy access to any image one could wish to see, the experience is a foreign one when compared to the encounter one has when confronting Riepenhoff and Brandt’s photographs with tangible traces of a locale. The artists subvert the expectations of the viewer by not allowing the artworks to function as photographs traditionally do—they are neither reproducible, nor unambiguous depictions of the landscape. Yet it is these two characteristics that draw the viewer closer to the subject. Riepenhoff and Brandt’s practices are connected to a rich photographic history tracing back to the very birth of the medium. They draw on artists and movements from the past in order to create tactile prints that provoke the viewer into spending a moment longer considering the subjects of the photographs and visualizing the process of making these prints—how it is that a portion of the landscape has traveled to meet the viewer in a wholly different space. In closing, a quote from Lisa Hostetler tidily summarizes the significance of such artworks today while also serving as a reminder to us: “For despite our era's visual sophistication, it is easy to get swept away by the charm of novelty and the pace of change. The trick is not to become so beguiled by future possibility that we forget the necessity of preserving a tactile space for memory in order to make sense of our present.”57 Joanna Sassoon, “Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” in Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, ed. Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart (New York: Routledge, 2004), 192. 57 Lisa Hostetler, A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age (Rochester, NY: George Eastman Museum, 2016), 23. 56 Kelly 30 Figures Fig. 1 Meghann Riepenhoff, Littoral Drift #451 (Polyptych, Quilcene Bay, WA 04.16.16, Eleven Minutes of Receding Tide), 2016, five dynamic cyanotypes, approximately 12 × 9 in. each Kelly 31 Fig. 2 Meghann Riepenhoff, Ecotone #2 (Bainbridge Island, WA 04.27.16, Draped with Showers), 2016, cyanotype, approximately 36 × 24 × 1 in. Kelly 32 Fig. 3 Meghann Riepenhoff, Littoral Drift #424 (Recto/Verso, Tellen Cabin, Sheboygan, WI 01.1315.16, Buried in Snowpack, Overnight Accumulation of Windpack and Melting Icicles), 2016, cyanotype, approximately 19 × 24 in. Kelly 33 Fig. 4 Meghann Riepenhoff, Littoral Drift #05 (Recto/Verso, Rodeo Beach, CA 08.01.13, Two Waves, Dipped), 2013, cyanotype, 24 x 42 in. Kelly 34 Fig. 5 Anna Atkins, Rhodomenia laciniata, ca. November 1845-June 1846, cyanotype, approximately 27 x 21 cm. Kelly 35 Fig. 6 Anna Atkins, Cystoseira fibrosa, ca. October 1843-May 1844, cyanotype, approximately 27 x 21 cm. Kelly 36 Fig. 7 Anna Atkins, Zygnema curvatum, 1853-1909, cyanotype, approximately 27 x 21 cm. Kelly 37 Fig. 8 Matthew Brandt, Klamath Lake, OR 2, from the Lakes and Reservoirs series, 2009, chromogenic print soaked in Klamath Lake water, 30 × 40 in. Kelly 38 Fig. 9 Matthew Brandt, Lower Falls C3M4Y4, from the Waterfalls series, 2015, multi-layered Duraclear prints processed with Lower Falls water, in LED lightbox frame, Frame: 65 ¼ × 46 ¼ in. Kelly 39 Fig. 10: Matthew Brandt, Dexter Lake, OR 3, from the Lakes and Reservoirs series, 2010, chromogenic print soaked in Dexter Lake water, 30 x 40 in. Fig. 11: Matthew Brandt, Dexter Lake, OR 4, from the Lakes and Reservoirs series, 2010, chromogenic print soaked in Dexter Lake water, 30 × 40 in Kelly 40 Fig. 12 Matthew Brandt, Dexter Lake, OR 5, from the Lakes and Reservoirs series, 2010, chromogenic print soaked in Dexter Lake water, 30 x 40 in. Kelly 41 Fig. 13 Carleton Watkins, River View down Yosemite Valley, 1861, albumen print, 20 15/16 x 27 in. Kelly 42 Fig. 14 Robert Smithson, A Nonsite (Franklin, New Jersey), 1968, painted wooden bins, limestone, gelatin-silver prints and typescript on paper with graphite and transfer letters, mounted on mat board. Bins installed: 16 ½ x 82 ¼ x 103 in. Framed: 40 ¾ x 30 ¾ x 1 in. Sheet: 39 7/8 x 29 7/8 in. Kelly 43 Fig. 15 Matthew Brandt, Great Salt Lake, UT 2, from the Lakes and Reservoirs series, 2013, chromogenic print soaked in Great Salt Lake water, 46 x 66 in. Kelly 44 Fig. 16 Meghann Riepenhoff, Littoral Drift Nearshore #463 (Polyptych, Bainbridge Island, WA 12.01.16, Five Simulated Waves), 2016, cyanotype, each element approximately 19 × 24 in.; 95 x 168 in. overall Kelly 45 Bibliography Armstrong, Carol and Catherine de Zegher, eds. Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature. New York: The Drawing Center; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Bates, Rebecca. “Matthew Brandt’s Photographic Works at Yossi Milo Gallery.” Architectural Digest, February 28, 2014. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/matthew-brandt-yossi-milo-gallery -new-york. Benjamin, Walter. “Little History of Photography.” In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 2: Part 2 [1931-1934], edited by Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith, 508-30. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004. Bierand, Doug. “Photos of Lakes Turn Psychedelic after Soaking in their Waters.” Wired, September 10, 2014. https://www.wired.com/2014/09/matthew-brandt-lakes-and-reservoirs/#slide-id -1532301. Bunnell, Peter C. “Photography as Printmaking (1969).” In Degrees of Guidance: Essays on Twentieth-Century American Photography, 149-56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Friedewald, Boris. Women Photographers: From Julia Margaret Cameron to Cindy Sherman. Munich: Prestel, 2014. Heckert, Virginia. Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography. With technical notes by Marc Harnly and Sarah Freeman. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015. Hostetler, Lisa. A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age. With Kelly 46 contributions from William T. Green. Rochester, NY: George Eastman Museum, 2016. Naef, Weston, and Christine Hult-Lewis. Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011. Riepenhoff, Meghann. “Q&A: Meghann Riepenhoff.” Interview by Allie Haeusslein. Strange Fire Collective, March 10, 2016. https://www.strangefirecollective.com/qa-meghann-riepenhoff/. Sassoon, Joanna. “Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” In Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, edited by Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart, 186-202. New York: Routledge, 2004. Smithson,Robert. “A Provisional Theory of Non-Sites.” In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, edited by Jack Flam, 364. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. ——. “The Spiral Jetty.” In Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, edited by Jack Flam, 143-53. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Squiers, Carol. What Is a Photograph? With essays by Geoffrey Batchen, George Baker, and Hito Steyerl. New York: DelMonico Books; International Center of Photography, 2013. Tiberghien, Gilles A. Land Art. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995. Uelsmann, Jerry. “Post-Visualization,” Florida Quarterly I, (Summer), 1967, 82-89. Yossi Milo Gallery. “Matthew Brandt: Excavations Press Release.” Accessed October 21, 2017. https://www.yossimilo.com/exhibitions/2014_03-matthew_brandt/.