György Kepes (American, b. Hungary, 1906–2001), Untitled, c. 1970. Black-and-white photograph, 14 x 11 in. Gift of Herbert Weitman, 2003. Open in Lightbox

The artworks in this installation demonstrate that the history of photography is characterized by persistent experimentation. Since the early nineteenth century, this developing medium has been continually reinvented and reconsidered, shaped by technology and changing dialogues surrounding photography’s use in relation to culture, documentary image-making, and fine art.  

When photography was first invented in the early to mid-nineteenth century, it was through iterative processes of trial and error, as people of a variety of skillsets and expertise tested different chemical solutions with ingredients such as silver, iodine, and salt to find one that could fix light to produce an image without it fading away. This resulted in a broad spectrum of analog photographic methods emerging simultaneously and in disparate locations.  

As photography became more widely used, practitioners developed a range of technological and conceptual approaches to the medium. For example, photographers such as Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882–1966) created painterly photographs by editing images in such a way as to emphasize subjective experiences and the beauty of the subject matter through tonality and composition. The work of figures such as György Kepes (1906–2001) and Nathan Lerner (1913–1997) approached total abstraction as they pushed for an understanding of light as both material and subject. Contemporary conceptual photographers like Leslie Hewitt (b. 1977) and Steven Pippin (b. 1960) blend new technological experimentation with historic references and techniques. They gesture toward the history of the medium while questioning how its perceived immediacy or use in mass media has shaped understandings of the world since photography’s invention.  

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