Weston Show at the Eastman House

[Frank Petronio]

The George Eastman House in Rochester, New York is showing several large collections of Edward Weston's work this summer. It contains a pretty complete mix of his work, along with some personal effects and letters. I especially appreciated seeing more of his later work, which has more "man-altered landscapes" and social-environmental and artist's lifestyle images. This later work seems especially modern to me, and vastly better than all those MFA thesis attempts at approaching the same material.

My problem with the show the Eastman House's lighting. The images are lit so dim that they look like mud. I can get a better sense of his work from a book, and none of the images had the holding power or richness of the prints I've seen - in a bright gallery - in Carmel or elsewhere.

I understand the reasons for the dim lighting but geez, unless you knew what his prints looked like in a normal setting, you'd come away from the show saying, "So what?".

Has anyone else see it? Is it just the GEH that is paranoid about lighting, or are other major photo galleries turning down the watts?

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I dont know about galleries but Museums here in Mexico are going nuts with this too....the light is so dim is it hard to appreciate the work. There has to be a balance between conservation and realizing that photographs is a reflective medium, low light takes away half of what the print needs to work.

[Daniel Grenier]

As a matter of fact, Frank, my wife and I were just there last week. We found the lighting to be perfectly resonable and actually much brighter tham many a museum we've been to. So no, the lighting was not an issue for us. OTOH, I do have an issue with the print selection for this show but that is a differnet matter.

[Kevin Crisp]

The show at the LA Public Library a couple years back was extremely dim, anything beyond a Zone III just looked black. The more recent show at the Huntington Library was even darker. I assume there is some preservation reason for this that I don't appreciate, since nobody would ever think this is the best way to look at them. I only became interested in large format after walking into a large display of his prints while killing time between meetings near the LA Art Musuem around 1980 or so. (I had never heard of Weston, I wandered over to the museum and followed the line of people upstairs and there I was. ) The lighting was excellent and I was amazed by his photographs as compositions and the inherent technical quality of the contact prints made quite an impression on me. I just didn't know a camera could do that. I am sure the experience under dungeon lighting would not have been the same.

[Mark Sampson]

The conservators and museum people don't want the images to fade, which is admirable. But they need to think of a better way to deal with the issue. I've been to see the Weston show three or four times so far- the work is wonderful. It is too dark in the galleries, but I've been able to adapt. Not so, however, at the Nationll Gallery's Roger Fenton show. There the illumination was at safelight level, and I got a massive headache from having to stare wide-eyed at work that deserved better.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Intermittent lighting is one way around this, where the lights are generally low, but the viewer can press a button to turn on more light for a timed interval. I've seen this sort of arrangement for ink on paper, pastels, watercolors, and other fragile media (more fragile than Weston's prints, I would think).

[paulr]

They usually have rules against flash photography, but not against coal miners' helmets.

[Frank Petronio]

Maybe I'll wear my little Petzl halogen headlamp next time. They did have intermittent lighting on his 8x10 color Kodachromes, and they looked great (although he only did Point Lobos stuff, no nudes or irony).

Had he been productive in a color era, he would have outdone Eagleston and Sternfeld by 40-50 years...

[Merg Ross]

Dim lighting of photographic prints seems to be the current museum trend. This is particularly disturbing in the case of Weston who showed and judged his prints under a western skylight --- at least he did in the Carmel years. The last exhibit of his work in San Francisco suffered from low light levels. Better to show them as intended -- they will not last forever anyway.

[tim atherton]

I'm trying to remeber the details now and I may not have got it quite right, as it's been a couple of years since I talked with a conservator about this but there are at least a couple of problems.

One I think is that the effects of such light damage are cummulative, so a lot depends on the history of the print and how much it has been exposed to light of various types before (and how much exposure remains undocumented).

Another is that as a photograph ages, the various things which effect it's longevity accelerate - so the effect of say humidity or temperature cycling or various forms of light exposure have a proportinally greater effect than on a newer photograph. So that the damaging effect of exhibition light on one of these prints 50 years ago (or on a print you just made) would be nowhere near as great as on prints of this age and vintage.

These silver prints don't last for ever. And the older they are the easier it is to damage them and accelerate their decline.

So the choice is show them in subdued conditions, or show them fully lit - perhaps as their creator intended - and accept that in a number of years their life may have come to a premature end.

Most institutions responsible for such work are obviously going to chose the latter

[paulr]

Tim, I noticed in the galleries that house the permanent collection at the modern, the rooms with the oldest work are the dimmest. All the nineteenth century work, through to the 1920s or so, are kept under what's probably 50 lux conservation lighting. Which is more like a romantic, candle-lit dinner than a western skylight. I'm not surprised that they light the albumen work like this, but the silver and even platinum work is lit the same way. While in the next room, ektacolor prints that they probably paid tens of thousands for are lit up with floodlights. Very interesting.

[Brian Ellis]

I saw a Weston show and a Stieglitz show in Washington D.C. a couple years ago. Both were very dimly lit. The Steiglitz prints were dark to begin with and showing them in subdued lighting was little better than not showing them at all. Weston's didn't suffer quite that much but still would have been better viewed under brighter light. It seems to me that if hours of exposure to light is the concern it would be better to cut the viewing hours in half and increase the light output so that the prints could be viewed as their makers intended. There weren't any huge crowds at either exhibit so I don't think cutting the viewing hours would have done any great harm and those who cared would then have been able to see the prints.

[Frank Petronio]

I'd make good copy prints or show Brett's versions and blast the room with light. Seeing the originals is nice from a historical perspective but if you can't really see them it is silly.

[CP Goerz]

I once attended a show of early pics(1870-90s or so) where the images were under dark velvet curtains that had a rod you lifted so you could view the prints underneath. This protected the image from constant light yet allowed them to be viewed in good light when they were being looked at...probably a very nice compromise overall.

CP Goerz.

[John Z.]

The 'Ansel Adams at 100' show in L.A. a few years back was also very dark; so dark in fact that many prints could not be seen very well at all, or properly appreciated. On the other hand the Getty has a good show of Strand prints going on now that are well lit. It seems to be gallery dependent how the photos are presented. I hope some places don't lower the lights simply for 'artistic effect'.

[Dan Jolicoeur]

The Eastman collection is also displaying "The Best of Ansel Adams" at the Universty of Maine museum of Modern Art. I must say the lighting there was great. Some of the prints also looked like they had been reframed, and overmatted for conservation on some of the older prints. I spent a good bit of time looking for inspiration, and left with a better attitude toward his work than I had preconceived. Regards,

[Jon Wilson]

Our family just attended a show at the Boise, ID Art Museum entitled "Georgia O'Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime" which shows a span of 50 years of her work and contrasts with several of Stieglitz's silver gelatin prints, e.g., his "equivalents" series of clouds. As a bonus, there are several portriats of Georgia O'Keeffe by Todd Webb. The lighting at this museum was dimmed and like at other shows....no pictures! If anyone is in this area between now and Sept 19th, you should make a point to visit!......despite the dim lighting.