The “best in show” winner in this year’s PhotoMidwest Biennial Exhibition is arguably not a photo at all.
“Something Blue,” created by northern Michigan artist Liz Cash, uses cyanotype — an alternative photo process involving chemically treated paper and natural light — to print family photos onto fabric in many shades of blue.
Cash then stitched that fabric into a wedding gown and tuxedo, both now on display at Promega in Fitchburg. The piece is “a nod (to) the traditional role and ritual of marriage in the family dynamic,” according to Cash’s Instagram, “as well as the role of traditionally women’s crafts.”
This sort of hands-on, carefully crafted photography work excites 2022 Biennial juror Aline Smithson. In the age of smartphones, Smithson is fascinated by the push toward one-of-a-kind works that cannot be duplicated. Many photographers have engaged in a digital backlash, taking apart their own images and reforming them with scissors and stitches.
Liz Cash, a recent graudate of Northern Michigan University in Marquette, made this piece, “Something Blue,” using cyanotypes on fabric. The piece won best in show in this year’s PhotoMidwest Biennial Exhibition.
“Those (pieces) are of interest to curators and gallerists,” Smithson said. “It’s not something that can be printed over and over.”
PhotoMidwest is based in Madison and has about 220 members, most of them local. Smithson, a Los Angeles photographer, writer and educator, was the first woman chosen to judge a PhotoMidwest Biennial (this is the 12th).
Her selections, chosen from 700 images submitted by photographers from 13 states, are on display at Promega BioPharmaceutical Technology Center in Fitchburg through Dec. 2.
A concurrent, non-juried PhotoMidwest member show is on display in Overture Center’s Playhouse gallery through Dec. 4; a reception is set for Friday, Oct. 7, at 5 p.m. There are photos on display at the PhotoMidwest Studio Gallery too, at 700 Rayovac Drive, and in a virtual gallery.
“We’re thought of as the flyover states,” said Ralph Russo, PhotoMidwest vice president and co-chair of the Biennial committee. “We want to show there’s good work being done here — diverse work, creative work, by people committed to telling stories. And it’s interesting to see it reflect their Midwestern roots.”
Abhishek Chandra’s “Capitol Sunset” is on display at Overture Center in the Playhouse galleries.
Makers and takers
Sifting through 700 images to choose 75 to display (including best in show and three “images of distinction”) was no small task.
Russo said every state in the Midwest is represented among those chosen, though about 40% of submissions were from Wisconsin photographers. Photographers could submit up to five images, but most chose two or three of their best shots.
“What I’m interested in is the quality of the photograph,” Smithson said, “the quality of the composition. Is it an arresting or moving photo?
“There’s a lot of great work that gets rejected because it’s slightly out of focus, or it doesn’t have a point of view. Or it doesn’t make me think about anything.”
Jurors have a tendency to choose work similar to their own, Smithson said, so she aimed to represent as wide a range of approaches as she could. She’s the founder and editor of Lenscratch, a fine art photography publication, which exposes her to different styles every day.
“I initially was not interested in any kind of iPhone capture, and now I look at that as just another tool. I’m not as snobbish about it anymore,” Smithson said. “I think the show is such a great representation of all these ways of seeing and working.”
Cindy Hansen’s “Moira” was chosen by juror Aline Smithson as one of the “images of distrinction” in the PhotoMidwest 12th Biennial Exhibition.
One way to think about photography is to separate work into “makers” and “takers.”
“People who are makers concept their photograph, before they photograph,” Smithson said. “Takers are looking outward, looking for things in nature and city life, and photographing what’s in front of (them).”
Two of this year’s “images of distinction,” “Purple Waves over the Badlands” by Nicole Fox and “Foggy Night” by Tim Holte, are “takers.” Smithson called both photos “beautiful,” noting that Fox had never submitted an image to a show like this before.
“I felt like it needed to be recognized for how beautiful it was,” Smithson said of “Badlands.”
The “maker” winner was Cindy Hansen’s image “Moira,” a criss-crossed, black-and-white patterned portrait of a woman wearing a large black hat and a slight, impish smile.
“We’re living in several worlds in the photo world,” Smithson said. Artists who are “thinking conceptually,” beyond “capturing the world that’s in front of their lens … I feel like it’s exploded.
“I don’t know if those artists working in that way will ever go back to straight photography.”
‘Everything is possible’
Russo has been making photos for some 40 years; he has an image in both the Promega show and the virtual showcase, online now at photomidwest.org. When Smithson came to give a talk and lead some workshops last week, she described photography working as a window or a mirror.
“Good photography does both,” Russo said. “You’re looking out at something interesting, or you’re looking internally at something important to you. It’s a neat way to think about the evolution of photography.”
Photographer Tim Holte’s image “Love is in the Air” is on display in Overture’s Playhouse galleries, as part of a member exhibition.
Contemporary culture is intensely visual, and most everyone has a camera in their pocket all of the time. Does that make all of us photographers? Perhaps.
“I think we are,” Russo said. “It’s definitely an art form that you evolve. You may start out by taking a beautiful picture of a sunset and that’s your entrée into the craft … but you grow. At some point, you’re like, I don’t need to take another sunset. I want to take a picture that tells a story.”
Smithson agreed with this.
“I think of photography as this universal language that can be spoken anywhere all over the world,” she said. “You don’t have to have an interpreter to look at a photograph.”
Smithson described this PhotoMidwest show as “a great representation of the incredible range of how people are using photography to tell their stories, or show us the world, or make us think differently,” she said.
“That’s really exciting. If I had just picked lovely landscapes and flowers, it’s not speaking to what’s going on in photography today.
“We live in the richest time in photo history. Everything is possible.”
