Cliché-Verre And Shadow Pictures
January 18 – February 14, 1985
The method of creation for these photographs is based loosely on the Cliché-Verre process, in which mark-making and a crude form of drawing is done (in this case) on 35mm film negatives, using scalpel blades and fine point pens to scratch away and add to the emulsion. The negative is then printed on conventional enlarging paper to 16 x 20″. The print is selenium toned and selectively bleached to add a sense of dimension. The work is produced by hand, without the use of computer, photoshop or any sort of digital capture
Since all information, both drawn and photographic, is contained on the negative, any number of similar prints may be made from one negative using normal darkroom procedures. This concept is important to me as it reinforces the photographic nature of the process I am using. The marks/drawings usually have some relation to the photographic image, but not always a specific one. The marks serve to “complete” the image for me. At best, the drawn imagery and the photographic imagery comment on and reinforce each other, creating a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.
The combination of drawing and photograph on a single two-dimensional surface seems to automatically raise issues involving two-dimensional and three-dimensional perception. Some of the pictures contain cultural, psychological, or even mythical references as well. Humor is important to me: Cartoonists (Charles Addams and Saul Steinberg are two examples) have been as strong an influence as other photographers. Recently, I have been making the drawn shapes more specific, sometimes using figures from well-known newspaper, photographs, or historical images as visual references. I’ve also substituted multiple printing for cliché-verre, using high contrast film to add shadow ‘shapes’ to the print. In combining these drawn:printed shapes with a photographic/environmental background, a new dynamic, that of social set satire, begins to appear.
Karl Baden’s photographs have been widely exhibited, including at the Robert Mann Gallery, Zabriskie Gallery, Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery International Center for Photography and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Anderson Yezerski Gallery, The Institute of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Musée Batut in France, Photokina in Cologne, Germany, The Photographers Gallery and Somerset House, both in London. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Light Work Visual Studies. His photographs and visual books are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Addison Gallery of American Art, Polaroid International Collection and the Guggenheim Museum. He is a Research Associate Professor at Boston College.
www.andersonyezerski.com/karl-baden
