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The San Francisco Photography Scene: Various Galleries, Varied Views
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14947 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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9 / 1988 |
2,674 Words |
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Darwin Marable
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For decades the predominant philosophy of photography in the San Francisco area was the straight to approach of the Group f 64, a name that the photographers used because they set their lenses at small apertures to obtain the clearest images possible. They were greatly influenced by the work of Edward Weston and developed an aesthetic based on his vision. Of course, ideas about photography in the San Francisco area have changed dramatically since the straight approach first gained dominance in the field. A multitude of viewpoints and techniques now coexist, ranging from the traditional straight to the experimental, and a San Francisco photography galleries reflect this diversity.
Oldest Operating Gallery
The Focus Gallery was the oldest continuously operating photography gallery in America until it closed its doors in 1985 after seventeen years. Helen Johnson, the owner of Focus, attempted to exhibit a cross section of Bay Area photography and never crated a forum for a particular viewpoint. The exhibitions ranged from Ansel Adams to Jerry Uelsmann and included local photographers as well as photographers with national and international reputations. Throughout the years, Focus always maintained an informal and democratic atmosphere. In contrast, current photography galleries seem more formal, specialized, and, at times, more elitist.
In the last decade a new generation of gallery owners ahs emerged. At thirty-two, Jeffrey Fraenkel is the youngest and one of the most successful of the photography dealers. Located at 55 Grant Avenue, just a few blocks down from the entrance to Chinatown, Fraenkel Gallery has been in operation since 1979 and is one of the older photography galleries in the area. Although the gallery exhibits photographs form the entire history of the medium, it tends to represent contemporary work of the more established photographers - Friedlander, Winograd, frank, and Witkin, among others.
One of the recent exhibits, John Gutmann: Talking Pictures, Signs, Tattoos, Graffiti, 1935-1987 (March 30-May 6), featured both the earlier and very recent photographs of this octogenarian who has been a photographer and art professor in San Francisco since the 1930s. As an émigré from Nazi Germany, Gutmann found America's world of automobiles, drive-in restaurants and movies, and repetitive advertisement quite novel. But most of all he was fascinated by the content and actual message of words that he found in his new country. Several of these interests - automobiles, drive-in theaters, and words -coalesce in First Drive -In Theater, Los Angeles (1935). While Americans took their sings and cultural artifacts for granted, Gutmann saw their uniqueness and photographed them for posterity. He documented the experience of communication but, at times, saw the absurdity and irrationality of these images. The neon signs in his recent photographs are often eclipsed so that the words and their meaning are unintelligible and obtuse, a common on today's communication.
Strange Landscapes
Two other exhibitions at Fraenkel Gallery, Queen Landscapes and O. Winston Link, Vintage Photographs (May 11-June 16), were equally perplexing exhibitions. The theme of strange landscapes includes an early photograph by Timothy O'Sullivan, Fort Hell (1865), and a recent Ektacolor print to smoldering palm trees in the desert after a fire, Desert
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