Leonard Evens
26-Apr-2005, 13:10
I finally got around to seeing the Sato exhibit at the Art Institute in Chicago. Aside from the obvious comments about the beauty and mind bending quality of the work, I notced several other things. First the images were on some sort of translucent material with lighting from behind. This made the light spots and traces appear as pure light. In addition the tonal quality was enhanced. Even forgetting the moving lights, it must have required a lot of work to choose exposure time necessary for the perfect balance of light and dark. Secondly, the detail present in the images made me feel like rushing out and getting an 8 x 10 set up. The display images were 32 x 40, a mere 4 X enlargement, and you could see every single detail no matter how close you got. Finally, for these gallery display images, Sato seemed reluctant to give up anything at all in his negatives. The dark edges from the film holders were apparent with a few places where the image went all the way to edge of the frame because of gaps in the holders. In addition, in one picture, made with a wide angle lens, his movements resulted in a shadow in one corner, which he left in place.