The Death of Photography | A Group Exhibition

Exhibition Dates: January 5– February 2, 2008

Robert Burley, Michel Campeau, Alison Rossiter

When the invention of photography was announced to the public on January 7, 1839 it created a sensation for both its advocates and adversaries. At present, photography is arguably more popular than ever, but it is also at the end of an era. Digital systems are rapidly making analog materials obsolete. This exhibition includes the work of three artists who are each commemorating this milestone event in the history of art and technology.

Robert Burley

The goal of this project, “Disappearance of Darkness”, is to create a photographic record of a rapidly disappearing manufacturing infrastructure dedicated to the production and use of photochemical materials. The images presented here document the final year of the Kodak Canada facility in Toronto. This facility, which was made up of 18 buildings on a 5 hectare site, had a one hundred year history of producing photographic films and papers. It was sold in 2006 and demolished in the summer of 2007.

Michel Campeau

With this work, “Darkroom”, Campeau articulates the decline of photography by concentrating on the obsolescence of private darkrooms. His investigation is like that of an accident expert, one who scrutinizes the incongruity of darkrooms and throws the spotlight on the bric-à-brac of plumbing and electricity, the ventilation-system engines, the posted iconography, the splattering of silver salts, the wear of equipment and the countdown of timers that seem to defy the disappearance of the panchromatic spectre. Campeau’s project is the first to be selected for a monograph by Martin Parr, the artistic director of a new series of books published by Nazraeli Press.

Alison Rossiter

In this work, “Lament”, Rossiter has been creating photographic objects that rely on the intrinsic qualities of old papers and films. She has been buying expired photo papers from throughout the 20^th Century and processing them without any additional exposure, in search of light fog or dark fading. She has also been collecting expired sheet film of different makes and sizes to make photograms. The remarkable photographs she produces  are silver abstractions of minimal imagery and are the result of light leaks, age, and circumstantial damage.