Bay Area photography - San Francisco Bay Area

Afterimage, Jan-Feb, 1998 by Terri Cohn

San Francisco's photography scene continues to be notable for its dedication to experimentation, as well as the perpetuation of straight photography among local artists and institutions. Sandra Phillips, curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, said that the most interesting characteristics of the region are its reputation as a craft center and its long history as a center for conceptual art, both of which inform the vision and work of the area's photographers. The Bay Area has a long relationship with photography, and the area's numerous museums, schools and publications all fuel the development and preservation of the medium.

The rapid evolution and immense popularity of digital imagery has infiltrated and profoundly affected the Bay Area photography scene. Although digital imagery is, as Artweek editor Meredith Tromble describes it, "the hot thing to watch," the directors, curators, and editors with whom I spoke about this process agreed that digital photography is in its infancy. The hesitancy among these art professionals to embrace digital work has much to do with their feeling that it is merely one more means to an end, an extension of the celebrated experimental stance of Bay Area art, which is often in defiance of mainstream artworld boundaries. Marnie Gillett, Director of San Francisco Camerawork, offered another reason to take a cautious approach to the new media: until very recently Iris prints have not been archivally stable.

Among local curators and directors a great sense of urgency is attached to collecting photographs. Gillett believes that while collectors in the contemporary marketplace will accumulate digital work as the printing process becomes more durable, traditional black and white and color prints will continue to be revered. Phillips underscored the feeling of exigency around collecting vintage prints, stating that photography curators must act quickly because work in traditional media will become unavailable. She believes that only in this way will institutions like hers be able to provide an adequate overview of the entire history of photography.

Related to this sensibility is a strong interest among Bay Area photography institutions in expanding and rewriting history, or what Deborah Klochko, who recently became Director of the Friends of Photography, succeeding Andy Grundberg, calls "revisiting the archive." From a nonprofit gallery perspective, this focus helps to create effective educational components for exhibitions, one of Klochko's primary goals (she was formerly Education Director at the Friends), as well as connections between past photographic work and current technical and conceptual interests. For example, she is working on a project called Outside History: Vernacular and Folk Traditions in American Photography for next year, while Phillips has just curated Police Pictures: The Photographic Evidence, which addresses physiognomy, the use of photography to uncover criminal identity, and the beginnings of anthropology. Rupert Jenkins, past Associate Director of San Francisco Camerawork and present Director of the San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, thinks that this reexamination of the photographic archive is affiliated with the prevailing journalistic thrust of photography culture, as well as the breadth of contemporary art that incorporates found photographs. This latter practice, common among younger artists and local art students, emanates from a San Francisco tradition - rooted in Beat sensibilities - of working with photographs in installation and mixed media contexts tempered by the predominant '90s focus on identity politics. Jean E. Weiffenbach, Director at the Walter McBean Gallery of the San Francisco Art Institute, concurs with Jenkins that photography has played a central role in the vast exploration of difference and the critical debates about cultural identity.

Interconnected with the strong attraction to mixed-media work and cultural identity investigations among local artists has been a profound interest in the alliance between art, science and technology, especially in relation to the human body. Local photographer Catherine Wagner, who recently was awarded the San Jose Museum of Art's Visual Arts Fellowship Residency along with a $50,000 grant, has been investigating the role that current technology plays in uncovering the mysteries of the brain. Addressing the "photography and science" colloquy from a different perspective, Gillett described a project planned for Camerawork for the Spring of 1998 that will present current work about the AIDS crisis. Gillett feels that this new work is more positive than the AIDS imagery of the last five to 10 years, reflecting recent medical advances.

Artists who teach in the local schools, colleges and universities are among the primary trend-setters in most art communities. Wagner's influence at Mills College is significant, and Larry Sultan's long-term presence at the California College of Arts and Crafts has inclined students toward political and public art. Phillips feels Sultan, along with San Francisco Art Institute professors Reagan Louie and Henry Wessell, Jr., are among the most influential teachers. She also mentioned David Ireland, who is one of several powerful artists who came to photography from installation or film backgrounds and have merged those sensibilities into innovative new forms.